Grief doesn’t work that way.
Neither do mistakes.
Mark and Eli needed months before things between them felt normal again.
Jordan had to earn back Eli’s trust.
The school had to face uncomfortable questions about why its first instinct had been to control an act of grief instead of understanding it.
And I still had mornings when I woke up expecting to hear Maya’s music coming through the wall.
But some things changed.
The yellow daisy was placed inside a glass frame with a copy of Maya’s letter.
It hangs beside our staircase now.
I pass it every morning.
The red dress stayed in Eli’s closet for almost a year.
Then, one afternoon, he brought it downstairs.
“I know what Maya would’ve hated.”
“What?”
“Us being scared to touch it.”
So we took it back to Westbridge High.
The school created a small remembrance display for former students who had died before graduation.
