Page 1 of Born in the Spring

One

Elara / Then

Shepherd Cassidy was laid to rest on a dreary morning, four days and fourteen hours after he died.

Four days and fourteen hours of feeling like I would never rest again, sleepless in my own deadness, my feelings far from me, my thoughts strange, sort of detached.

I wore a dress he would’ve liked. His eyes were permanently closed and I wore a dress with him in mind that he would’ve loved to see. It was long-sleeved, with leggings under the skirt to shield me more from the cold, but it had lace at the neckline. He liked lace, and he liked it on me.

The reports on his passing brought up his snowboarding career—cut short—and how much he’d be missed by his fans, especially those local to Casualty, Colorado, the name of the city now a little further away from a comfort. The remarks on his life outside of that fit into one sentence, as if the many other sides to him weren’t just as remarkable.

Shepherd was thirty-four. He had lifelong friends. He had afamily. He was a son to two now despairing parents. He was a big brother.

And he was my boyfriend of five years.

His casket was white, like the surrounding snow. More flakes started to fall, almost too light to notice, a few tiny where they landed on my hands. All my fingers were clenched together on my lap where I’d been sitting in the front row at the funeral, my nails scratching at the skin. It was the only feeling that was clear, the only feeling I could give myself to, some physical pain. The rest was buried with Shepherd, all the emotions I should’ve been feeling, lost in some haze the moment his body was found, still lost to me as he was lowered six feet underground.

I never lost someone that close to me. Not to death. This was a grief I never experienced, and I felt like I was grieving wrong. I didn’t crumble to the floor or break down in tears. That was Gary, his father. He and Amie, Shepherd’s mother, and Jasper, his younger brother, had a new color to their face, rimming their eyes and staining their cheeks, a deeper and darker red than the shade that tinged their skin every winter. They were drowning and learning a new way to breathe. There was a new pressure in my chest and my world moved in slow motion, sometimes stilling completely, but I didn’t havethe lookof someone who just lost someone she loved.

No one important questioned me or accused me of being heartless. Shepherd’s family, and mine, knew me, they knew our relationship, and they knew everyone grieved in their own way.

I learned my way was hushed. Four days and fourteen hours of static.

My trapped grief may have had something to do with ourlast night together.

Itdidhave something to do with our last night together. His last night, alone. I was quietly living through that moment again, those feelings, and how if I had done one thing differently, made even one different choice, Shepherd would’ve still been here.

And to put it plainly, I was mad at him for dying. For being so careless with his life. I was still hurt over the things he’d said to me, conflicted over the things I’d said to him too, our last memory almost…impairing me.

But I told myself I was just doing what I knew I had to do—being strong for everyone else. I let my heart hurt more for them than for me. They needed that more than ever.

Amie, sitting at my left, folded her hand over both of mine, and they opened to her like a flower, my fingers twining with hers in a steadying grip. She always felt cooler, even in the warmer months, and her initial touch would send a shiver through me, but I realized as she squeezed that I was already shivering.

I met the despair in her welled eyes—brown, like Shepherd’s, the sight prickling more life into me as I squeezed her back.

“It’s over,” she said through a half there voice, her words wet, her breaths shallow pulls. “He’s gone.”

When I looked around, I saw people scattering, Gary in a head start toward the car. Amie tugged me up and I tugged her into my side, our matching boots following the path to the street. Onlookers—fans, mostly the locals, maybe some tourists who were staying at his family’s resort when it happened and knew of Shepherd—and men with cameras, waiting to report on the services, surrounded the gate, allprohibited beyond the steel fencing.

I wanted to believe they meant well. He was loved.

Shepherd Cassidy wouldalwaysbe loved.

And now, missed. He would never surprise us in the middle of the night, returning home from his boarding trips to make the missing a little easier.

My last memory of him doing that tried to sneak up on me, so I kept Gary as my focus, watching him remove his suit jacket with jerky arms and fling it into the back seat before shutting himself inside behind the wheel.

Amie’s feet faltered over the sight, and I slowed with her, then gave her a stronger tug to keep moving.

Jasper cut across the way, and now it was my feet faltering, Amie coming to a complete stop as I did. He trudged in front of us through the snow toward his dad with his head down and his hands in the pockets of his slacks. He should’ve been sitting next to me today, but the chair at my right remained empty, as he said goodbye to his brother from the distance of the trees.

At the car, he hesitated at the passenger side before shutting himself in with Gary, without a backward glance.

He’d barely looked at me in four days, keeping his distance, and I knew why, and I gave him his space, but I’d still try to catch his stare and it would escape me.

It didn’t escape me now. After another hesitation, with his gaze turned toward the window, he lifted his eyes to mine.

His head of golden brown curls was the first thing I noticed when we met. His eyes were the second. The green was piercing, but with a softness around the edges. Now those eyes glistened with his grief, increasing the pressure in my chest. I’d known him since he was seventeen, and he was always the boy who felt everything deep in his soul. Only twenty-two when helost his brother. Still too young to have to experience that level of loss. Neither of us would’ve guessed our collided worlds would crash in this way.

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