A person can only watch someone die for so long. That's why I asked you to take a break, and as I lie here staring at the walls and listening to the machines that help keep me alive, I'm getting tired of watching death creep in too.

It's so hard to say goodbye to you.

It's so hard to let you go.

You've been my one constant. My best friend, and, yes, a giant pain in my ass. Sometimes you just wear me out.

I was born first, so I will always be older. That aggravates you to no end, because you're so damn competitive. Always persistent. Always tough. Always fighting.

You have the soul of a warrior, and you hate defeat. More than anything, you hate to lose. It killed you, being a girl, always having something to prove. There were days I wished you'd been born a boy, too. Not for your sake, but for mine.

It wasn't easy, constantly letting him down. The comparisons and the competitions. Your triumphs. My failures.

But I understand. You just want to be seen. You never felt like you were seen. Sandwiched between a brother, the focus of all Dad's hopes and dreams, and a little sister, the focus of all Mom's. It must have been hard to find your place in this family. In this world.

You never felt like you fit in anywhere except with me.

What happens to you, after I'm gone? It's the only thing that scares me about dying. I don't want to abandon you, so I need you to know something before I go.

The most important thing in the world isn't winning. Or coming in first. Or being the best. When you find yourself caught up in your battles, please try to remember that there is something more important than the fight.

The most important thing is love. (Stop rolling your eyes, Peyton).

It is. It's love.

You have to stop shutting everyone out. You need to love people, despite their flaws.

Love Mom, even though she doesn't get you. Love Dad, even though you're mad at him. And love Emma. Yes, even Emma.

Love is not a transaction, it is a choice. At the end of it all, it's the only choice we're left with.

I know you want me to fight, but I'm so tired. The constant competition. The relentless expectations. I never quite measured up. I never really wanted to. I don't want to be the hero. I just want to be at peace.

Please give me that.

Don't think of it as losing. You can never lose me. 

But I need you to let me go, so that I can let you go, too.

*****

I slept for what felt like days. My mom would come in periodically to feed me soup and make me drink soda. Maybe they all thought I was actually sick, and maybe I was. I was in a constant state of delirium and helplessness.

I would dream about Pax, the kind of dreams that feel so real, like my subconscious forgot he had died. I could touch him and even smell him. The scent of oranges. He loved Clementines. My mom always complained about the peels she'd find in his pockets and on windowsills. I don't think she's bought Clementines once since he died.

In one of my dreams, we were still little kids walking down a gravel path in the forest by my grandfather's farm. When we approached a bridge, he stopped short, and like a scout, put his finger to his mouth, motioning for me to stop. A doe perched on the edge of a clearing shielding a fawn who hopped between his mama and the trees.

We paused and gazed at them in silence as they cropped grass. Pax was in awe. Shirtless, he was as slender and brown as that baby deer. His lips parted, curved up in a smile.

Then a shot rang out, echoing through the trees.

The fawn fell to the ground, blood gushing from his heart. I was crying as I ran to him, knelt down, and put my hand over the wound to stop the hemorrhaging. But when I did, it wasn't a baby deer on the ground anymore.

It was my brother, gasping for air through fluid-filled lungs. He was drowning in his own blood.

I woke up screaming.

*****

The scene from my dream reminds me of the time we were riding home in Poppie's truck. We'd been fishing at the lake when a downpour hit. We must have been about six or seven. My brother sat closest to the window, and I was stuck between him and Poppie as we rolled down that very road and approached that very bridge.

That's when my brother pointed at an object in the distance, on the far side of the bridge. It was moving slowly through the rain.

"Poppie," he whispered. "It's a turtle."

Poppie eased to a halt and looked over at Pax. "So?"

"She might get run over by a car," Pax blurted anxiously.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Can't you go take her to the other side?"

"Can't you?" Poppie asked gruffly.

Pax's eyes widened and he contemplated that for a moment. "Yes," he finally said, "I can."

I watched as Pax climbed down out of the cab and scurried through the rain to the other side of the bridge. He paused for a moment, unsure if he should disturb her. He steeled himself, bent down, and scooped her up carefully with two hands. Then he waddled slowly to the side she had been heading towards, arms outstretched holding the turtle aloft, and gently placed her in the grass.

"That boy's too soft," Poppie grumbled. He wasn't really talking to me. More to himself. "This world ain't no place for a boy to be soft."

Pax ran back to the truck, opened the door, and looked up at me. He was soaking wet but beaming. "I think she's going to be okay." He smiled.

He smiled the same way while watching those deer in my dream. 

*****

This world is no place for such a boy.

Once I watched a show on National Geographic about frogs whose skin was so permeable that the slightest change in the ecosystem had a profound effect on their health. The slimmest levels of toxicity could wipe out a population. That's sometimes how I thought about Pax. Like a kid who needed a bubble around him to survive because his skin didn't filter anything out. He felt the evil of the world as a conduit.

He refused to turn away from the pain of others. He absorbed it all.

He took in every agony of the world as if he were the curator of other people's anguish and suffering.

Meanwhile, I averted my eyes and armored myself. I changed the channel. I turned away, because the worst part was not the suffering. The worst part was not being able to do a damn thing to stop it.