September 3 (one and a half months earlier)

Normally, a seventeen year old girl blowing kisses at the pictures of two brothers aged twelve and thirteen, pictures that were covered with heart stickers and dried roses, would be beyond weird-it would be downright squicky. It's the kind of thing that if the boys' parents or any other adult found out about it, there would be frantic calls to the high school principal, alerting him to the situation. There would be hushed conversations with the girl's teachers and concerned words with her parents.

Basically, the girl would be called immediately into the counselor's office, set in a chair, allowed to sit in uncomfortable silence while looking at his messy desk and a mug that had 'Living my craziness!' on the side, until she was finally asked, "Do you know why you've been called in here to chat with me today?"

Everyone pretty much knew about my mirror and the pictures in my bedroom, though. If I was going to be totally honest, no adults actually knew I was blowing kisses at the pictures, but they did know about the heart stickers and roses, and I supposed that was close enough.

I thought of them every day: Sean with his corn-silk hair and blue eyes that had made my 12 year old heart skip and leap, Levi with his brown curls and hidden smile who knew my every secret but one.

"Brooklyn, are you coming?" my mom yelled from the kitchen down the hall.

"Yeah, just getting my clothes on!" I had to stop thinking about them and get dressed.

It was still too hot outside for my tights and Doc Martins, so Mary Janes and a loose skirt would have to do. I opened my closet to find a top, flipping through the shoulders and sleeves of shirts and sweaters, looking for something that didn't look old or worn out. A sailor-cut tee caught my eye and I pushed the hanger next to it aside. Marks on the back wall caught my attention. There were a bunch of long scratches that I had never noticed before.

I jerked on the string to turn on the overhead lightbulb.

What the-

"Brooklyn, sometime this morning!" Mom yelled again.

"Yeah, I'm still getting dressed," I mumbled at my clothes.

The scratches were letters, but I couldn't quite make them out. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil from my bag to make a quick rubbing. Words appeared in the graphite and cold spread through me.

COMING FOR YOU

I stared first at my paper and then at the phrase scratched into the back of my closet not sure if what I saw was real or not. I touched the marks. The grooves were rough but not deep, as though they'd been made with a coin or...fingernails.

This was going to ruin my day, just when I thought things couldn't get worse. I flicked a glance at my mirror and the pictures of smiling kids, dried up roses and stickers. I was already running late for school.

The only logical explanation was that the words had always been there. The previous renters were messed up freaks who had done this for kicks before moving out.

From the kitchen, my mom yelled for me to hurry up and come to breakfast or starve the whole morning. I slid the hangers back in place and pulled the string to turn off the light. Trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, I shut the closet door.

The drive to school with my mom passed in a blur while I convinced myself that although we'd been living in that apartment since I was nine when my dad left us, somehow I had just never noticed the words before.

COMING FOR YOU

No punctuation, no words or letters before or after. It didn't really mean anything, but it felt like a punch in my stomach. I nearly chewed off my bottom lip thinking about it. I felt sick, but there was no way I could tell anyone about this. I could only reassure myself that no one and nothing was coming for me.

Maybe I should tell Alicia.

Or maybe not. She would have a panic attack, she would have every reason to. I couldn't tell my mom, she would think that either I did it for attention or that someone broke into our apartment as a prank.

By the time I walked in the school, though, I was ready. I lived my life in halves every day. There was the normal half that I showed to the world: the me that missed my friends, but carried on with my life. I played the drums, was excited for the future and complained about teachers and tests.

A second half of me was buried underneath the top half. This part of me raged that my friends had been abducted and refused to accept that they were gone. This part was bitter and restless. This part felt strange winds in closed rooms, found scratch marks on walls that shouldn't be there, and saw vines or moss that others didn't see.

Five minutes after arriving at school, I was staring at the school counselor's messy desk and stupid mug.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked me.

"No," I answered. I started picking at a ripped seam on the scratchy chair. "There's nothing new to say."

"You know what today is, don't you?"

Mr. O'Neil was not exactly brilliant. Nice and willing to try hard, yes. Brilliant, no. "Yeah, I know. But it doesn't really change anything," I said.

He adjusted his glasses and gave me his 'I get you' smile. That's what I called his expression when he did a cheesy smile and a shrug at the same time, ending with in a click from the side of his mouth. "Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Are you going to see Mr. and Mrs. Walters tonight?"

Today was my annual visit to Sean and Levi's parents. "Yeah."

"How do you feel about that?" he asked, suddenly intense.

"Good. I feel good. It's the only thing I can do."

"And how do they feel about that?" he pressed.

Wait.

And if we thought about that for a moment?

1. How the hell should I know how they feel?

2. Did he think this was some kind of therapy for the Walters and me? Flipping through their 14 photo albums again and again?

3. What answer could possibly be right? That they enjoyed having me over?

4. Or I could tell him that Mr. and Mrs. Walters were chronically depressed. At least that would be the truth.

But I can't stop going and the Walters can't bring themselves to ask me to not come. Like a wound that won't heal because you keep tearing it open on purpose. None of us wanted the scars that might form if we healed. None of us could bear the thought of moving on.

"I guess they feel OK," I said. "They try to stay positive, keep their hopes up. Levi and Sean could still be alive."

"That's absolutely right. Although, you need to prepare a special place in your heart for them, in case they're not. Do you have your secret garden ready? Have you begun planting the flowers and plants that you think they would enjoy?" Mr. O'Neil asked.

I hated his secret garden crap. As if the spirits of two dead guys were going to hang out in a fake garden that I imagined for them in my soul. I couldn't quite picture Sean and Levi sniffing roses and getting lost in a topiary maze.

"I'm still working on that," I said.

"Well, they were special boys. I never met them personally, but you know I've talked to their middle school and elementary school teachers and of course, you've told me all about them. You have to prepare yourself, Brooklyn. One day, you might have to say goodbye to your playmates."

Everyone, even the Walters talked about them as if they were still twelve and thirteen. As if they were frozen in time, neither dead nor alive. I didn't see them that way. They felt like they were seventeen and eighteen for me. In my mind, they went to class with me. They got in trouble for drinking beers and buying pot behind the 7-11. Levi tried to flirt with girls and begged me for advice, and Sean dated every girl in school and several who weren't in school and others from different towns often at the same time, but never me. He never noticed me. All in my imagination.

The morning bell rang, making me jump. Classes were starting.

"All right, you hang in there, kiddo. If you need to talk, I'm always here. Let's have a smile before you go. A smile a day, keeps the grey clouds away." Mr. O'Neil gave me his 'hang-in-there' smile, a wide smile with his eyebrows up and a couple of nods towards me. This kind of talk and smiling only reassured me that I needed some professional counseling, not this band aid he was giving me for the hole blasted in my chest five years ago. As if a smile a day could heal me. But I kept up appearances and only let people see my façade, the socially acceptable part that went to school, got semi-good grades and was planting roses and hedges in her secret garden.

Five years ago today, it happened.

COMING FOR YOU

The words escaped into in my head, turning over and over, dancing round and round. Was someone coming for me?

I walked in a daze through the crush of other students towards my locker. There was a guy leaning against it. His back was to me, his head full of brown curls.

The hallway spun. I thought I was falling.

***** I'm very excited to be posting this story, and I hope you enjoy reading! Let me know if I'm getting carried away and the pace is too fast or confusing! Thanks!! *********