He’s leaving us.

She collapsed into gut-wrenching sobs. “No. No!” Her fingers looped with Conner’s as she chanted over and over, “Don’t go to sleep, Co. Please, please don’t go to sleep. I can’t make it without you.”

My own tears made everything a water-world as I held my two children and gave into the heart-cramping, soul-tearing knowledge that we knocked on demise’s door.

Galloway coughed back tears as Conner convulsed in his embrace. The teenager’s heart pounded so hard, his pulse was visible in his white-shocked neck. His tan couldn’t hide the spread of suffocation, turning him icicle-blue.

“It’s okay, Conner,” I murmured. “It’s okay.”

It’s not okay.

Nothing about this is okay!

Pippa screamed and struggled.

But Conner couldn’t comfort her.

His eyes remained locked on mine.

Brown to hazel, young to old.

This boy loved me.

I loved him.

I sobbed harder, giving him every ounce of my affection. “I love you, Conner.” My back gave out as I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed him. I let gravity sway me to his venom-riddled form and I kissed his brow, his nose, his cheeks.

His eyes remained open, stealing final glimpses of this world. His skin lost life-luminosity as his mouth sucked air.

His body suffered too much poison.

His nervous system shut down.

His consciousness was the last lingering piece tethering him to pain.

I didn’t want him in agony any longer.

Pulling me away, Galloway snatched me to him, hugging me, hugging Pippa as we worshipped at the feet of an angel and said farewell.

Pippa peppered kisses all over his face, murmuring promises and pacts. Galloway patted him and stroked his cheek, unable to hold back his sadness, vowing to keep his sister and me safe for him.

Conner’s eyes landed on each of us as his lungs failed and his heart gave up its valiant beat.

His body thrashed.

His lips mouthed, ‘I love you.’

And then...

he

was

gone.

.............................

OCTOBER

Conner.

I couldn’t say his name without battling wet, heavy tears.

I couldn’t think about him without wanting to tear apart the past and make it false, to reincarnate him from a terribly sadistic joke.

I even struggled to say my daughter’s name as it reminded me too much of Conner’s grin when she’d said her first word. The similarities between Conner and Coco mutilated my heart on a minutely basis.

He’d loved me.

And left me.

For days, I couldn’t get out of bed.

No one could.

We lay frozen, neither eating nor drinking; only cracking the tomb of our sorrow to care for Coco when she squalled.

Coco.

Those two letters were forever smeared in woe.

Co.

Co.

Come back.

I’m sorry.

I couldn’t understand how the quills had lodged in his chest. How had he stepped wrongly? Did he fall? Had a wave pushed him onto the reef?

Or had it just been one of those things—unforeseen, unplanned, but the tiniest mistake that cost the best of lives.

We would never know.

We’d forever wonder what stole Conner from us.

And we’d never have an enemy in which to extract vengeance.

.............................

The funeral was held two weeks ago, yet the pain of his loss felt only hours old.

Pippa hadn’t said a word since we’d gathered on the same beach where we’d laid to rest our pilot and her parents and weighed down Conner’s body for the tide to claim.

He’d looked asleep. Cold and unloved. But only asleep.

Watching the waves slowly claim him, slipping over his closed eyes and parted lips, drove me wild.

Galloway had to hold me, putting up with my fists and screams, as Conner slowly left land for sea. I craved comfort from my husband’s arms but I felt undeserving. Who did Conner have to hug and kiss?

He was alone now.

That night, we didn’t move from the beach. Pippa sought solitude rather than our arms, and we sat in the moonlight with silent sadness in our souls.

Once the sun rose and Conner had vanished, we added his name to the small shrine of the Evermore parents with a newly carved cross and an inscription of our everlasting love. We plucked a hundred red flowers and scattered them over the sand in his memory. And we lost each other, retreating to our private corners of grief.

The day we lost Conner was the day we lost all energy to continue.

I didn’t remember much of those weeks.

I didn’t remember comforting or speaking or doing more than eating when my body demanded and crying when the dysphoria grew too much to be contained.

Pippa curled in on herself, turning into an inconsolable wraith.

Galloway spent a day hunting every stonefish he could find, slaughtering them one by one. It terrified me that he would step wrong and suffer the same end as Conner.

Death didn’t pay for death.

And once he’d finished, his shoulders wracked with silent sobs, crying for Conner, our future, and a past he still couldn’t shake.

Even Coconut grieved.

Her questions about Conner petered out the longer we shook our heads and gave no answer to his return. Her babbling conversation turned quiet and morose as if, even at her young age, she understood that her favourite older brother was gone forever.

We’d been so brave.

We’d been so strong.