It's late too late to reverse time and hold her within my arms with time hanging still. I'm left here with a room that keeps a frame of forgotten days, where the air still spoke her name, her sweet, tender laughs, her scent, the hush of wind on a hot afternoon, and her gait that echoed through the room as she danced and twirled around humming "Don't you know, I'm still standin' better than I ever did? Lookin' like a true survivor, feelin' like a little kid." as she lived in between those lyrics. I'm still in awe since that damned night that all this time she was hiding behind a guise, clinging to every last breath of life but I was so blind that couldn't see her losing it all.

Around three days ago, on the way back home after my 9-5 job, I got a text message regarding her, mentioning "I wish you knew how much you meant to me" I wrote back to her seconds after, "Silly, obviously I know, but what's with the past tense?" I thought it was simply her, being exactly who she was, trying to express her affection, without a second thought that it would be the last words I could hear from her, it tears me apart every time wondering that If I had call her in that instant, she could have been sitting by my side reading her book sipping on her coffee. Oh, how I miss hearing her go on and on about her recent read, even though literature itself failed to impress me.

That day, it took longer than usual to get home. She wasn’t feeling her best, so I thought ordering her regular order could cheer her up. I rang the bell, as always, hoping for her embrace and the comforting words, 'Take a rest, you've worked so hard,' to hear nothing but the heavy silence. I rang again, but no response came. I tried to reach for my key in my disordered bag, stuffed with a haphazard collection of random items, took me a few minutes to find it. I turned the key in the lock, and the door flipped open.

On that very day, I lost everything, not only a friend. We succeeded in breaking free from our parents' house and departing that small town, to arrive here and breathe life into our forgotten dreams. We had nobody but each other to hold on to, and now she's no longer here. I feel like a fiveyear-old kid being abandoned in the middle of a deserted city, lost, in denial, grieving. The emptiness grows with every breath, a reminder that the world continues, but I'm stranded in the wake of her absence.

As the door swung open, my eyes fell upon her lifeless body, drenched in blood, lying in a cold absence. My gaze was frozen in place, unable to process the reality before me. Dropped the coffee and fell to my knees, half-breezing, half-screaming, trying to crawl to her side, but I was paralyzed, gasping for air, my chest heavy with a crushing heartache. The sight of her lifeless body stirred waves of nausea and disbelief, cold sweat beading on my skin, as the world seemed to crumble around me. It took what felt like an eternity to gather myself before I stumbled, weak and unsteady, to her side. I stole a glance at the hunting rifle beside her, splattered in blood, its dark presence undeniable. With shaky hands, I pushed it aside and leaned it toward the wall, each movement feeling like an unbearable weight.

Her beautiful face lay gently against the floor, her long, wavy hair fanned around her like a dark halo, catching the warm light of the sun. She looked like an angel, adoring, innocent, pure, and so heartbreakingly calm. In all the ten years I had known her, I had never seen her so at peace, and the sight tore something deep within me. I held her close, my sobs filling the silence, until a neighbor’s voice broke through the haze and the world returned with sirens and uniforms.

I don’t recall much after that. It was all a blur; a fever dream I couldn’t wake from. Sometimes, pieces float back to me: the endless road to the hospital, the screaming sirens, the neighbor's face, pale and trembling at the door. The nurse lifts me, my body weightless, empty. Opening my eyes beneath the hospital’s cold lights, seeing her face one final time before we fulfilled her last request — to have her cremated.

I’ve lost all sense of time, hours, days; they slip past me, forgotten. I’ve been barely surviving, unable to stop myself from staring at her photos, each one capturing that sweet, lovely smile of hers. The charming pictures she took of everything still lie scattered around. How much she taught me to appreciate, to notice, to cherish the simple things I once overlooked. I miss it all: the way she would snap pictures of me laughing, walking, crying, driving. In the moments I despised my reflection, she saw something worth loving, and somehow, I believed her.

I find myself listening to our songs, each melody unraveling a memory, and I sob with all of them. I bury my face in her dresses, her wardrobe, desperate for any lingering trace of her, just for a fleeting second to believe she’s still standing beside me. I keep coming back to her room, searching every corner for her in her paintings, her books, her scribbled notes, her dolls, the decorations and posters she loved, even in the colors on the walls, which somehow captured her so perfectly.

The notebook, which I found by her side, lay there untouched for days, a silent reminder of what I had witnessed, too overwhelming for me to face, even in its stillness. picked it up and turned it over in my hands, hoping it would tell me something I didn’t already know. It was a brown leather journal, its color’s shade grew richer with time, just like the ones she used to make. Embroidered on the cover were the words An Elegy for the Living. I pulled the rubber band loose and opened it, but took a glance at the first page, and I felt something break inside me. I couldn’t do it. Not then. Not now.

“This is not a tale of existence but a mourning of moments lost. When the ink finally fades, so shall I, a fleeting whisper in a world too eager to forget.”

After two or three weeks, I finally summoned whatever strength I had left to attempt reading it. As I turned the pages, a heavy, suffocating realization gripped me. Every paragraph began with the same word: “For.” She had written until the very end, each line a desperate whisper, a final testament. In the last sentence, her voice lingered, a haunting echo that would never fade. It was as if she had known, somehow, that her words would stay with me, etching themselves into the deepest parts of my being, a permanent scar I would carry. Here are a few that have lingered with me to this day.

“For being physically alive but being unable to feel a strand of emotion inside me. For every memory that slipped through my fingers while I was lost in thought, anywhere but present. For being alive but feeling like a corpse, cold, tense, and alone. For never knowing what freedom tastes like. For being forbidden from countless things, the reasons for which I could never grasp. For being denied the life I dreamt of, to dance in the rain, to run wild by the sea, my hair tangled in the wind. For being punished for being myself, for daring not to mold into the shape society demanded. For having to lie for the simplest thing.

For every chance I was denied to be out in the world, to be with those who felt like home. For blasting music loud enough to drown the sound of their endless arguments bleeding through the walls. For never having a family and a place to run to. For having a father, but never a dad. For being forced into adulthood when all I was meant to be was a child. For being the unloved one, the angry, selfish, rude daughter. For never having the chance to know what being loved and adored feels like. For crying myself to sleep, mourning the parents who would never change. For always being treated like a problem. For becoming a person whom I couldn’t even recognize, a stranger. For staying outside with friends so often to run away from a place that’s supposed to be safe! For living with a heart that feels like it’s being crushed under its weight, dozing out midconversation, burned out, exhausted, pretending everything is fine. For being unable to hug my mom and burst into tears cause I feel like a burden all the time. For always being reminded as an angry person, even though all my life, all I did was everything I could to swallow the rage, to shut the voices in my head, to suppress the anger that was built in me since childhood, all of it for nothing. For the little girl, no one ever listened to, whose voice was silenced before it ever had a chance to sing. For the sweetest, happiest version of me, dead and gone. For looking in the mirror and despising every inch of what I see. For losing my love for food, the smallest joy that once made life bearable. For letting sadness creep in, consuming me until it became the only place I ever belonged. For being a listener, but having no one who listens to me. For being at war with my brain to live and feel the joy it brought me, and failing at it. For always being the average, never the best, never enough. For staying alive so my family wouldn’t have to bury me themselves. For no one apologizing for what they’ve done to me, but blaming me for how I behaved. For not remembering grandpa’s voice, not being able to play with his silver hair. For losing the last chance to meet him cause I was busy studying, chasing a future that never saved me. For hating my father, even though he did everything he could for me. For caring so deeply about others that I forgot myself entirely.” And the last line,” Sorry. I was selfish this time. Too tired to explain, too tired to stay.”

I kept myself breathing with her words, clutching that old notebook of hers, lost somewhere between her absence and the ruins of what we once shared. I slept in her room, curled up in her clothes and bedding, drowning in the scent she left behind, holding onto every last piece of her that the world hadn't yet stolen. But even that couldn't save me.

I knew I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t let the life we dreamed of rot away in the silence she left behind.

In her will, she asked me to travel. To keep moving. To pour her ashes wherever life would take me.

So, I did.

I gathered what little we had, and I left city to city, country to country, chasing the life she never got to live, breathing in sunsets, touching oceans, laughing where she never could. And with every step forward, it was like she was walking right beside me, smiling in the breeze.