Roland’s POV

I looked around at the trees surrounding me in the heart of the woods.

It was so quiet here. The only sounds that could be heard were leaves rustling in the wind, a few birds chirping in the distance, and some squirrels playing in some of the leaves that had fallen to the ground. The light breeze felt nice too and the branches above me made the sun feel so much more bearable. 

I leaned my head back against the tree I had been resting on for the past hour and looked up at the sky. It was bright blue without a cloud in the sky.

I have always liked the color blue. It was calming yet bright but could still be dark when things were just too much. Sky blue like this was my happy place. The leaves framing the never-ending sky was a breath of fresh air I hadn’t realized I needed. Just a little flash of color in vast blue reminding me I couldn’t reach up and touch the sky. 

I could vaguely hear the water lapping the beach of the lake a mile to my right and it made me wish it was the same color blue as the sky rather than the muddy brown it was stained with by constant use.

The longer I sat here the more I thought back to Town Day. Not to the shops or the food but to Kit and I when we sat in the park and watched the sunset by the lake. The first time I had kissed him, the way his breath had felt in my ear, the blush that had stained my cheeks for hours after, the confessions that happened the next morning, and the fact I had a boyfriend minutes later.

I longed for that day again, or at least one similar to it.

I reminded myself to just hold out for one more year. One more year and this would all seem like a distant memory I could work to forget.

I sighed as I looked down at the letters in my lap.

Kit’s first letter had arrived this morning and it had made me sad even if I would never tell him that. He wrote about how he was doing, some details about his friends, and how he was pretty sure his manager was selling pirated movies though he couldn’t be sure. I had loved reading about these stories but what made me sad was the printed pictures he had sent with them. 

The first picture was cute, just him smiling at the camera with one of the biggest I had ever seen on him. The next was a picture of his new room decorated, one was of the living room; a strange boy was sitting there and a sharpie with an arrow pointed to him labeled the boy as Cody. He seemed nice even if he was half asleep when the picture was taken.

There was a picture of Kit skateboarding at a park. His hair was pushed back by the wind and he looked completely care free in a way I had never seen from him here. Another picture of him smiling as he held up his board, giving a nice view of the charcoal picture that the girl had drawn for us months before he left. 

Another was a group picture with a lot of people I didn’t recognize but all of them were labeled with the same Sharpie. Anthony had a gentle smile, one hand holding up a peace sign while the other wrapped around my boyfriend’s back. Kit was smiling brightly as he pointed to the apartment building behind him, excitement clearly coursing through his every vein. Beside him was Cody, looking at Kit like he had hung the moon, his smile more guarded than the others but still there and clearly excited. Lastly was a boy named Nathan. He smiled almost as widely as Kit while holding up his middle finger at whoever was taking the picture, his other arm slung around Cody to pull him into a side hug that the other boy was flat out ignoring. 

There were several others. Some were of just Kit and I cherished those. He had gotten tan now that he was able to skate and get out of the cabin without me holding him back. Most were of him and his friends. A few just had his friends, all of them labeled in every picture just in case I had forgotten them. 

I frowned as I looked at a solo picture of Kit. It was clear he didn’t know the picture had been taken. He was staring at the skatepark in front of him, his head tilted back slightly and he was laughing at some unsaid joke that I would never get to hear. I would never get to hear this laugh or have the memory beyond the picture I held in my hands.

Three weeks had passed since my boyfriend left me, three weeks since he had left to make new memories without me. Three weeks out of an endless year.

Having emotions was confusing. I was happy. Happy to have the pictures even if I couldn’t be there in person. Happy that he was happy. Happy things were going well for him.

I was also sad. Sad I was left behind even when there was no other option. Sad that he had his friends and I was alone. Sad that my best friend was unreachable yet all of his were with him everyday. Sad because it has only been three weeks and he was having this much fun.

It only cemented the fact that I would be forgotten by the end of the year and would be left behind by him to in exchange for his real friends now that they were together again. I was a placeholder from the beginning and back then I knew that but after a few months I had forgotten my place and this hurt like hell. 

I was also mad. Mad because he promised he wouldn’t be like the others. Mad because even if I was a placeholder he said he loved me. Mad that he didn’t seem to be hurting the way I was. Mad because he was living the life I had been begging for since the day my mom died. 

I was also confused how I could be feeling all of these things at once by just looking at a few pictures.

My fingers brushed the picture where Kit’s cheek was. For a second I almost thought I could feel the warmth of his skin but it turned out to be just as cold as the rest of the page. 

I forced myself to blink back the tears gathering in my eyes as I picked up the second letter.

It was from Keith, my last foster father before running away. I thought he was joking when he said he was going to start writing me again so seeing his name mixed in with my mail had been a shock.

His divorce with Aubrey was finalized. He had gotten everything and was now back into fostering kids by himself. He only had one right now, his name was Joshua, he was 5, and this was his first foster home. He said Joshua reminded him of me and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Keith told me he had been excited when he saw my last letter come in the mail and hoped I would continue to write him for as long as I felt comfortable. He talked about his favorite baseball team and how they were doing this year, about how he was taking fostering more seriously now and had lessened his hours at work as well as taking a step back to be less a part of bigger projects to spend more time with Joshua.

I was bad about Keith too.

Keith had always been nice to me but too busy. Why couldn’t he have done that for me? What was so wrong with me that he could only stand to be at home for a few hours before running off again? I didn’t understand it and part of me was sure I never would. 

I put the letter back down and looked up at the endless blue sky. A cloud had blown in and it ruined the illusion but I stayed there.

The cabin had become my prison over this past week. 

The walls kept feeling like they were closing in on me and the warm light from the lamps didn’t feel as welcoming as they once had back when I had Kit. 

The wind rustled the leaves above me harder than I expected it to. Another cloud blew in, this one dark and ugly, and a leaf hit my head unexpectedly. I blinked at it as it fell into my lap before brushing it away to the floor.

I stayed there for hours, just watching the sky and listening to the animals around me. One by one the storm clouds blew in and before long the beautiful, endless sky I had always loved turned dull and claustrophobic, becoming more black and purple than soothing blue and green.

I thought this was what death would feel like. Beauty and light slowly being replaced by ugly darkness little by little until you can’t remember how things used to be and you just sizzle out, staring at your own oblivion, unaware of how much time has passed until you just blinked out of existence. 

I felt the first drop of rain fall onto my forehead. The second landed in my hair and the third hit my cheek. The fourth drop of water had been my own tear rolling down my face and hitting my pants leg.

Just like that the floodgates opened. Rain came down hard and it mixed with the tears in my eyes.

I sobbed in the storm and I wondered if the sky was crying with me; if the ocean had done something so heartbreaking that the sky couldn’t contain it’s tears either and chose this place to cry in private too.

We cried together. 

The pictures and letters in my lap were ruined and I couldn’t find it in myself to care as I held them to my chest and sobbed so hard my chest hurt and I could barely breathe.

Yes. This must have been death because I couldn’t think of any other thing that could possibly hurt as much as this did.