A Thousand Broken Pieces (A Thousand Boy Kisses, #2)

by Tillie Cole

“Here,” Kabir said, gesturing all around us, “we celebrate death.” He smiled. “Death is the best lesson in life. Death teaches us to live, for the short amount of time we are here. Death teaches us to live with all our heart and soul, day by day, minute by treasured minute.”

Keep going,

Kids and adults alike threw powder and colored water at us, followed by gracious embraces.

Everyone here seems so harmonious!

Craved it.

“Yeah,” I said, barely audible. “He…he saved me too,” I said, because it was true. He’d saved me in all the ways that counted. Right up until the end, he was the best big brother anyone could wish for.

I missed it. I missed this.

I miss you. I love you. And I wish you could have stayed…

A place of healing and not loss.

It seems like a Poppy thing to think that way.

Tala. Her name was so beautiful.

“And I still talk to Poppy,” I said. “At her grave near where we live. And I talk to her in the stars.”

“Stars?” Tala asked.

“Stars shine brightest in the dark.”

“Bye, Tala,” I said, my throat graveled. Because I knew I would never see her again. She swallowed, then over her sister’s and brother’s heads, said, “I’ll see you from the stars.” I gave her a watery smile. “I’ll be looking for you,”

I would do this for us both.

“I just wanted to give you something back…give you back a part of Poppy.”

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. When I felt tired, I saw it. I heard a car horn, a screech of tires, and I was thrust back there, Cillian in my arms, broken and fucking gone.

“Wabi-sabi teaches us to embrace life’s imperfections, its impermanence and incompleteness.”

Every breath I take is cherished. Every kiss Rune gives me is a gift I didn’t think I would have again.

South Korea

Poppymin,

Long time since I heard that!

Forever Always.

Again, long time no see, words!

rasped

Seems a little repetitive…

Harvard

a thousand broken pieces.

“All my girls, back on home ground.” I knew he meant Poppy too, who was waiting for us in the Blossom Grove.

As I reached Poppy’s grave, I smiled, seeing the picture of me and Rune in Kyoto taped to the bottom.

“I thought you’d want it…someday. Maybe. I don’t know…”

Just like Rune's parents.

And we’d forever live in honor of those we have lost.

I had to go back to see Poppy…and now Rune, who lay beside her in their blossom grove.

And then there was the north star. For Tala.