I stand at my locker, my hand on the door, kids rushing behind me as I stare at the empty eyes in the picture I hung on our first day of sophomore year when we were actually given lockers, his arm wrapped around my neck and him smiling his wide smile, the one I longed for to see again, to press my lips to again, to smile with again.

"Mae, I know your grieving or whatever but I need to get to my locker." I turn my head to see Buck Ty, junior. Sophomores have the top row, juniors with the bottoms, freshman carrying their things and then seniors getting full length lockers, which only one eighth of them use. I switch textbooks and close and lock my locker, walking to my history class. I sit at my desk in the front, Mrs.Lynn sitting at her desk with her signature orange hair held down on her shoulders instead of a high ponytail, her signature red and white polka dotted glasses sitting on her nose with her red lipstick not on her lip, rather a soft pink;her natural lip color that she rarely wore.

I sit at my table, Mrs.Lynn standing up as the late bell buzzed and her fake smiling at everyone as they scrabbled through the door and to their seats. "Now, Principal McNever would like me to take this week to discuss various ways Tyler Brooks death affects us all, how to deal with grief and sadness in a less painful way and to build a circle of students who can help each other," she explains, her hands clasped together in front of her chest as she walks around the room, passed the four by four table groups, the shiny, tan stone desk not as shiny as they were three months ago at the beginning of the year, now with pencil smudges all over them. "She would like me to call it Communications Class and after this week we will be holding it every Friday."

"Why, Friday?" Zack Chase asks, his hand slightly up, slightly down as he sinks in his seat across from me. He rarely speaks in general, usually short if he does.

"Well it is the end of the week giving you time to reflect upon the school week, also seeing as Tyler loved Friday and it also the day I give you the most time off during class," she sadly smiles, mostly at me. "Now I will leave a bucket by the door and every Friday I will take out around three notes and we will open them up for discussion. You can not write them addressed to me or another student, but you can put your name or leave it anonymous." I start to draw on the desk, my eyes drifting to the empty seat next to me as it is filled with a body no one has seen, nor is wanted in that seat.

§•§•§

Lunch.

The one subject I was succeeding in, now am failing seeing as I am now sitting in the janitors closet, tissues balled in my hands as I cry harder. I can't face anyone in that giant room without crying. If I do, then I'll end up dying more then I already have–am, am dying. I'll always be dying. Tyler was my rock and now he's gone.

The bell blared against the door, the sound muffled as students walk by. I soon join them, trying not to come in at a time where more kids would notice me. I open my locker, standing at it then pulling out my science binder and walking to Mr.Brandon's class, sitting in my seat in the front row while every else fills in, his son, Jeremy Brandon, sitting to my right and Natasha Lurker sitting on my left. I shrink in my seat as I feel eyes shift to me, then to Alex; two seats on my left, Tyler's best friend. We rarely speak, and we're always around each other. But I guess, not anymore. We have no reason to speak to each other anymore.

"Now back to our lesson last week on Newtons Theory-"

"Mr.Brandon, aren't we going to talk about Tyler? Tyler Brooks?" Jai, the African American student leader, asks.

He puts down his marker, stopping halfway through writing 'theory' and turns to us. "Mr.Brooks is dead, there is no way to sugar coat it and students have already asked me about him, humans are made and designed to move on, not linger in the past so I will continue my lessons, life will go on and then we will all meet Mr.Brooks fate, just less gruesome." He turns back to the board, finishes writing and then goes on about it.

The bell chimes in our ears so I walk out of the room with the others, grab my backpack and math binder from my locker and stumble into Ms.Bells room, her already writing the equations we need to solve, her hand pausing between each one waiting for someone, that one person who was always here before me to correct her on the equation, no one speaking as she wrote down the problem, students walking in and groaning for not knowing it. Me on the other hand, I sit and stare at the piece of paper in front of me, not moving my hand in any way shape or form to solve the problem.

How can I solve an algebraic problem if I can't solve my own? Tyler always solved my problems.

"Mae?" I look up at Alex, his eyes filled with as much sadness as mine. "Can I sit?" I shrug as Alex sits next to me and looks at the problems, then to my paper. "Do you not get it?" I shake my head. I can't–don't want to speak. He sighs and gets up and moves. He sits next to Jeremy and they do the work as I stare at the paper in front of me.

§•§•§

My parents are yelling over my future again. They want me to move to an All Girls school so I can get over Tyler, but I can't. I loved him, still do. I look back at my glowing computer screen as I stare at Tyler's MyLife page. MyLife is a website where you can talk to people and they create pages and chats and more. Tyler's is filled with notes saying 'sorry for your lose', 'you shouldn't have died'. MyLife has a way of knowing when someone dies, so they locked his page so no one could hack it and change it. Jai has a whole paragraph to him and practically vowing she would execute his murderer herself. I can hear the fact accent she uses when she wrote it. She was born and raised here, but uses her Father African accent to talk.

I look at my page, people have asked me how I'm doing. I don't know how to answer. Tyler managed and made my account. I don't even know my password. I close my laptop before I cry. I pick up his hoodie and slid it on, his rich cologne still lingering on it. I pull on my tennis shoes and walk out of my room. Should I go back for my phone? No, I don't need it for what I'm doing.

I don't say I'm leaving. They won't notice, they'll just think I fell asleep crying again. I walk out the front door and down the street, my hands tugged into the hoodie pockets. It's around ten o'clock at night. We snuck out a lot at night. I walk to the bridge where we first met. The town holds a Color Run at the beginning and end of each school year and they always run across the bridge. We both ran in it and he nearly passed out on me at the end, the other end of the bridge is the finish line. I stare at it, then look at the water rushing under the bridge.

Maybe I can see him again.

I crawl over the edge of the railing and sit on it, my feet dangling over the water as I wait for the right time for the current to take me. I lower myself down onto the edge of the bridge that hangs over slightly, my toes hanging off the edge as I slowly lean forward, my knuckles white as I grip the railing and look down at the water where our awful tour guild took us down the wrong river and we nearly died on a raft with three other screaming teens.

"Don't jump," I whip my head around and see a tall man. He's lean, broad shouldered and a five o'clock shadow on his chin. His pale skin makes him extremely white against the moonlight. "You were going to jump right?" I slowly nod. "Why don't you come down and I'll treat you to coffee? Then we can talk about it." He softly smiles. He steps closer and takes my hands, then pulling me over the edge and we walk across the bridge and to a twenty four hour coffee shop. We sit by the window as it starts to rain.