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Quinn was numb. She’d lost her sun, moon, and stars all at once.

Thoughts of Hadley consumed her, visions of the innocent, freckle-faced girl losing her footing in the Atlantic Ocean, screaming in fear as she lost sight of the shoreline, eventually caving in to her need for air.

Quinn was trapped in a blackhole, falling down a dark pit that felt like it would never end. Hadley used to tell her how a blackhole might feel, but she had never imagined it would feel so infinite.

The only escape from the nonstop horror reel was sleep.

Haven sat next to Quinn at the funeral and held her hand throughout the program. The seats were filled with Quinn’s friends and their families, Hadley’s school teachers and friends, and Hadley’s father. Neither Blair, Josh, nor Quinn’s mother had the strength to give a eulogy. That forced Quinn to stay intact long enough to take to the podium with stories of the girl who loved constellations, weeds, and other things only imagination allowed.

“Hadley wanted nothing more than to leave her mark on the universe, to explore the galaxies, to discover new solar systems. She’s dancing with the stars now. I hope the constellations love Hadley the way she loves them. I hope they are everything Hadley dreamed of.” Quinn cupped her hand over the microphone to release her sobs. The funeral home filled with the heartbreaking cries of a girl left with nothing.

“She deserved a rollercoaster.” It was the last thing Quinn said before she ran out of the room and never came back.

The funeral was cut short. People Quinn didn’t know offered their condolences. She wanted nothing to do with them but shook their hands anyway—her hands clammy and her face emotionless. When Everett saw her, he hugged her as if he could squeeze all the sadness straight from her body.

He couldn’t.

Nobody could.

Quinn’s friends knew it would be a long time before she became herself again. They did everything they could to keep her mind from dozing off the way it always seemed to. Saray filled their kitchen with enough fried rice and tamales to feed a village. Liezel and Everett made sopas and purple yam cookies. When Quinn managed to eat, she couldn’t keep anything down and resigned her stomach to the same emptiness as everything else.

Haven, Holden, Mason, and Jorge texted her every day. They sent her stupid jokes, pictures of baby animals, and funny videos. She woke up to dozens of them, only to fall asleep again without replying. The sun was her only indication that it wasn’t night time. There was only day and night, but she didn’t know how many times they changed shifts.

All she thought about was how happening to your own life didn’t stop life from happening to you.

Everything she’d built this summer on was a lie. Happiness was a lie.

Everett drove to her house every afternoon, but he never got the courage to knock on the door. He stayed parked down the street until sundown, long after the cotton candy ice cream he’d bought for her had melted away in the floorboards. Everett would never know how much Quinn needed him, and Quinn would never know how close he had been the entire time.

Those close to the family filled Blair’s porch with flowers: roses, daisies, lilies, carnations, anything that would give her some sense of hope. Blair didn’t let them in the house, and had no intention of keeping them alive. She wanted the weeds to eat them alive. Weeds were Hadley’s favorite, anyway.

Quinn’s mother had arrived in time for the funeral and helped Blair with all the logistics of putting your little girl to rest. When summer was coming to a close, she helped Quinn pack her things and drove the two of them back to Raleigh, away from the beach that stole Hadley from them, but never from their pain.

Blair spent the next three months in Hadley’s old room.

Quinn vowed never to touch the water again.