When We Collided

by Emery Lord

Then he died, and it turned out my mom relied on him for basic function, too. My mom mostly stays in her bedroom now. Sometimes I wonder if she’s whispering to her heart: Beat. Beat. Beat. To her lungs: In, out. In, out. Like it takes all her time and energy to exist.

I never know which tense is right. When someone dies, that person no longer is your best friend. He was your best friend. But when you’re the person left here, like Felix is, you’re still in the present tense. Like I am. Tony Daniels was my dad. But I am his son.

has long sleeves to cover my scar.

Last year, they curled their inky arms around me until my Technicolor world became crackling gray static. Until I felt nothing but blankness.

doesn’t understand what it feels like to waste away in a castle dungeon where you have been chained to crumbling walls. And, when the dragons close in, you only think: Good. Let this be over.

I just want to survive this endless, fucking awful year.

‘Ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for’?”

“I keep wondering if it’ll ever hurt less. This . . . this hole in our lives.” “Oh, I imagine it’ll hurt less eventually. I think there will always be a hole, though.

But I also miss having a parent. Sometimes I want to be the kid, embarrassing as that is. I know I’m seventeen. I shouldn’t need someone to rub my back and tell me it’ll be okay. That I’m not screwing up everything as badly as it feels like I am.

I didn’t want to die. I was just trying to feel something. It turns out feeling a cold blade slice into your flesh and then warm blood slopping onto the floor is actually infinitely worse than feeling nothing.

At first, it was almost funny, like—Ha-ha, look at this! I can’t feel anything. But then the sensation stayed gone, and I thought it might be forever, and I got desperate to feel anything.”

I scream for every time it’s felt impossible to get out of bed, for every time it’s felt hopeless, for every time I’ve felt out of control and terrified, for the guilt and unfairness.

But the point is that trying to make things better sometimes makes us better, too. The point is I’m trying to create good things in the midst of the bad. Grief or no grief. And in my case, it’s still somewhere in between.

Every girl wants to be Dorothy Gale or maybe Glinda. I never wanted to be the tornado.”

“When we collided, we bounced each other back into orbit. And now we have to do that—we have to return to our own paths because that’s what we gave each other.”