Not even the familiar pool holds a warm embrace for me. The water is far cooler than what it has always been kept at, making my skin prickle as I sink further into the abyss. I open my eyes as I go, looking out into a never ending sea of blue.

Arms grab me before I can fully appreciate the beauty of the water and the bubbles floating from my throat to the surface where blurred lights dance. They pull me against a large body that feels sharp in contrast to the open water. As we plunge through the surface, into the night air, I hear him take in a deep breath. He is still anchoring me against him, pulling me toward the shallow end.

I don’t resist. I don’t know what I was doing coming in here. I’m sure Kyle’s thinking I’m insane, or trying to kill myself. I’m not. I wasn’t. I just needed to feel something that didn’t hurt.

Kyle doesn’t stop until we hit the three-feet marker and then we stop. His hands move from my waist to firmly grip my shoulders. The thin burgundy sweater he wore to dinner, something that I’m sure Mindi had chosen to match her emerald green dress, is plastered to his chest and water’s dripping from his hair, face, and clothes as he stares at me, waiting for an explanation. What were you thinking? What were you doing? His eyes plead to know.

My mouth opens to apologize, to explain that I would have come back up. Instead, I begin to cry.

He pulls me against him, allowing my body to be completely reliant on his as I go weak with sobs. A few moments later, another pair of arms wrap around both of us.

“We love you, Ace,” Jenny whispers softly, her voice filled with tears.

A chorus of soft splashes fills the silence of the night, and one by one my family converges in the pool, weaving their arms around us.

“Dad would have loved this. He probably would have tried to require that it be a tradition,” Mindi says, followed by a loud sniffling from behind me.

“Yeah he would,” Savannah adds, her voice remorseful.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kendall’s voice lacks the nostalgia that our older sisters’ both hold. Hers is filled with intent and purpose. “Min, since your house is closest, do you mind if we move everything there?”

“Yeah, we’ve got everything. Let’s go,” Kyle answers in agreement, bypassing my oldest sister’s response.

“Kyle, take her to the front. I’ll go grab some towels,” Mindi instructs, pulling herself loose from the web we’ve become.

It continues to slowly unfold with her absence, and I look around, watching each of my sisters and their husbands or boyfriends huddle in on themselves as we wade to the steps to climb out.

I insist that I’ll be fine, that we can all stay and I won’t bring things up again, or at least get my own things if they insist on leaving, but Kendall nor Kyle consider my words.

“We’re done here,” is Kyle’s response when I begin to protest again. His arm feels heavier than I remember it being as it wraps around my shoulders. We go around the back to the side gate and wait by Jameson’s car, each of us creating a dark puddle on the driveway as we shiver.

For some reason Steven’s welcome rings in my ears again. It never dawned on me that when he’d said “welcome home,” he’d meant his home, not mine.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

–Maya Angelou

Humans are 99.9 percent anatomically the same. It’s a fact. So how is it possible that .01 percent makes everything about Max so different? Did my skin really burn when he had touched me? Had we fit together so seamlessly? Is every perfect memory a lie that my mind and body have created to torture me? I wish they were, but flipping back through the pictures that I brought home with me resurrects memories with such precise detail that I feel as though I’m experiencing each of them again. I can feel Max’s touch, smell the crisp spiciness of his skin, and hear the soft rumble from his laugh. Each image hurts a bit more than the last, yet I can’t set them down, or stop from going through them and carefully studying each one. I know I won’t be able to function until I see them all and allow myself to remember again.

Tears stream down my face, and my body is covered in a sticky coating of cold sweat that plasters my hair to my neck and face. My heart is beating so fast I can feel it in my throat and behind the throbbing of my eyes that search around the dark space, seeking a familiar item to bring some comfort.

My nightmares are worse than my memories, because in my nightmares tragedy strikes and I’m always a few steps behind, but I’m always there to see it occur.

I grab my phone from my nightstand and see that it’s 4:23 a.m. The covers shift as I sit up, exposing my damp skin to the cold air. My muscles constrict painfully with shivers, and I cry a few more tears simply from the discomfort that I’m experiencing, in addition to trying to fight the images of seeing Max lying in a casket. In my father’s casket.

I try to take a few breaths and steady the racing of my heart, speaking aloud to assure myself that it was all just a horrible, horrible nightmare—one of a thousand that has plagued me since last May. I feel saliva start to pool in my mouth. The churning of my stomach as my mind conjures up the image has startled me awake, and I dash to the bathroom where I lose the contents with a painful heave that makes my tears increase.

After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I change out of my sweat-drenched clothes and pull on his old T-shirt and fall back into my bed. I had re-inflated it last night and it feels a little too full, but at this point I really couldn’t care less. Reaching toward a large box I use as my nightstand, I turn on the lamp then carefully hold the sides of the stack of pictures so I don’t smudge them. I turn through them all again and wonder what he’s doing now.

The gym is a lost thought as the morning wears on. I spend an ungodly amount of time on simply getting dressed, fixing a bowl of cereal, and trying to recall what day of the week it is so I know what time I need to show up for class. It’s Wednesday and Kitty moved our session up today so that it’s my first stop.

Great.

“How are you feeling this morning, Harper?”

I work for nonchalance as I give her a shrug, and nod in response.

She waits.

I must have tightened my lips, or an emotion flashed in my eyes, or I moved my finger—hell, maybe I just took too long of a breath, but I can tell she knows something is off. Recently, she has begun resorting to these silent stare-downs with me when she hits a sore spot. I know when she’s initiating one because her head tilts to the side, just as it is now, and her green eyes seem to grow with determination. There are few things more awkward than sitting in a room with another person and having them stare at you. It irks me beyond measure, but she already knows that. That’s why she does it.

“I sometimes have these dreams about death. Last night I dreamed that I was at Max’s funeral.”

Thankfully Kitty never gloats when she wins our silent exchanges and fortunately reins in her intense staring. “That must be very difficult. I’m sure they must dig up fears and memories from your father’s funeral, and plagues your mind with new ones. Is it always Max?”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s reflective of your relationships with those in your dreams?”

My eyes widen as I search the room for anything to stare at other than her. They land on Fuego, the Betta Fish that has to stomach my stories and confessions as well.

“How’s Fitz doing?” She rarely gives me allowances like this these days, and my eyes turn to her to ensure that she’s not tricking me. “That’s not a very common name. Is it a nickname?” she continues. Her questions are coming too close together. It gives me an eerie feeling that she’s preparing to broach a bigger target.