Page 20 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

The mangled bike partly caught under the front wheel.

And finally, a pair of feet and the beginning of legs, the rest of a small body thankfully obscured by the placement of the car that shields him.

“No,” I cry, weakly, refusing to believe what I’m seeing. “Astor? Astor, get up.” I call, tasting the tears streaming down my cheeks and onto my tongue.

I take a step towards him wanting, no,needingto be with him, but someone stops me. I don’t know who, it’s some nameless, faceless adult who puts a hand out and holds me back, eventually holding me entirely when my legs buckle and I drop to the ground.

The last thing I remember is seeing drops of blood on the asphalt and feeling the rain hit my cheeks before darkness overtakes me.

***

When I wake up, it’s nighttime. I’m tucked in my bed and my mum is sleeping in the reading chair in the corner of my room.

“Maman,” I say, calling for her, and for a second I allow myself to hope that it was all a dream. But when her eyes open and I see the weight of the world in them, I know it was real. “Where’s Astor? Is he okay? Can I go see him?” I rapid fire ask at her, throwing the covers off me.

She crosses the room and sits on the bed next to me, forcing me to lie back down. She strokes my hair quietly for a moment, like she always does when I’m upset.

“Mum…”

“I’m so sorry,ma chérie. Astor… he’s gone, baby.”

“Gone where?”

“With Granny in Heaven.”

“No.” I say, shaking my head and refusing to believe it, “He’s fine, he has to be.”

She gets in the bed next to me, pulling the covers over us and hugging me tightly against her. When I feel her arms close around me in a safe embrace, I finally break down.

The tears stream down my face and I let myself fall back into the oblivion that is sleep, silently hoping that this time I won’t wake back up.

Chapter 6

Phoenix, age 10

Three days after the accident

I’m numb.

So numb that the world around me hasn’t felt real these past three days. It’s been a blur of aimless activity and I can’t say I’ve been fully conscious of any of it.

Even now, I can see flashes of the last few days, but not the full picture — getting the news, watching my mum completely break apart, having people come in and out of our home with dishes and kind words and well wishes.

And feeling incredibly alone through all of it.

Something snapped inside me the moment Astor died, I physically felt it as I stood in the empty treehouse. Our lives were connected together, one thread that’d been spun at birth, drawn out and separated into two unique paths as we grew, and three days ago I’d felt the Fates open the jaws of their scissors around his thread before cutting it mercilessly.

It robbed me of my breath and all rational thought, and I instantly knew something terrible had happened.

A part of me died that day and will be buried alongside him at his funeral on Sunday, the same day he would have turned eleven.

Instead, I’ll turn a year older by myself while he remains a ten-year-old forever. In the aftermath of his death, I’m left with all the grief and regrets that I have.

Especially the way I’d competed with him unnecessarily in everything because I felt like I was perpetually stuck in his shadow.

I wanted to win but not like this. Never like this.

It all feels so silly now. Like I wasted precious energy I could have spent actually enjoying the time I had with him if I hadn’t been so caught up in this one-sided rivalry.

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