We all told ourselves that once we graduated, we’d be free, that all our problems would fade away, that we’d conquer the world together, but I never knew about the pain that we’d go through and the broken promises we’d have to leave behind…..

Summer break had finally started and school had finally ended, we were now officially graduated and now officially free!

The bright sun and the warm summer breeze dance across my skin, 

“Quinn! Let's go!” I turn around to see all my friends waving me over

“I’m coming!” I run over to them, there are five of us, Me, Luca, Ray, Kai, and Iris. 

Kai was tan-skinned and had jet black hair with beautiful bright blue eyes that I always envied, he’s most described as the “pretty boy” of the group which always makes us laugh. Iris had pale skin, so pale that we’d often joke that we mistook her for the dead, she was constantly changing her hair color and this month is was a beautiful light turquoise, she’s described as the “wild one” in the group. Luca has brown curly wild hair and freckles that cover his cheeks, he actually has multi-colored eyes, when you look into them it’s almost like looking at a marble with the green swirling into the brown, he's described as the “baby” of the group due to his childlike personality. Ray is described as the “protector/book worm” of the group, he’s always been all our big brother and was always the smartest of the group and pretty much always had his head in a book of some sorts, he has jet black hair and light-colored skin, he has baby blue eyes that remind me of the ocean, he’s also taller and buffer than us. As for me, I have short black hair that barely reaches my shoulders, I also have light/tan skin with dark blue eyes, I’m most described as the “free spirit” of the group.

We had all known each other pretty much since birth, I can’t imagine my life without them in it,

Luca’s parents were never in the picture due to drugs and alcohol, but it never seemed to bother him, Kai’s parents were always leaving town for work, and Iris’s parents couldn’t care less what she does, they don’t even see her anymore, my dad passed away when I was little and my mother was doing a research trip in Africa and doesn't talk to me much, and as for Ray he only had his mother, his father left when he was just a baby.

 His mother was pretty much all of our mothers, she’s always been there for all of us, when Luca was dealing with legal stuff due to his parents, he was going to be put into an orphanage which meant he’d have to leave us, but Ray’s mother stepped in and took him under her roof, same with when Kai’s parent’s left him, and when Iris’s parents couldn't see her, and when I had no one to turn to, we were all like one big happy family and it stayed that way to this day.

“So where to?” I ask, 

“The library” Ray said teasingly 

“Booo that’s no fun” I say childishly while making an exaggerated frowny face, Ray looks at me and laughs

“If you keep making weird faces you’re going to get wrinkles”

“Am not!” I touch my face just to make sure there’s none there causing everyone to laugh

“Jerk” I say but couldn't help but smile

“We should get going before the beach get’s overcrowded” Luca says

We all start to head towards the beach, we always go to the beach, it was kind of our spot and even though there was so much around us to explore we never go, it was always  

“Should we go check out the new park they just finished downtown” 

“Sure!” then when we go to leave someone will go

“Do yall just wanna head to the beach” and next thing you know we're all at the beach

We’re finally free!!” Kai yells as he runs into the ocean while kicking off his shoes, We all follow him laughing.

The sun was high a beautiful, the water was cold and salty and felt so relaxing it was hard to get out.

Afterward, we all change our clothes and brush off the sand as best as possible, even though we all knew there would still be sand everywhere for days in unexpected places.

We began to walk home, the soft warm color of orange illuminates the sky as the sun begins to set,

“So what are we going to do now?” Iris says staring at the color-lit sky above, 

“We’re going to stay together of course!” Kai says as he wraps his arms around all of us, almost making us trip and fall

“Kai!” Ray yells as he almost falls into the street

“Oops sorry”  Kai laughs and ducks as Ray goes to smack him, up-side his head

Ray says something and then Kai responds with something that must have been funny because it made Iris laugh, but I was too occupied to listen, a jet black raven was sitting on a metal fence just staring at me, its eyes were entrancing and the way the sunlight bounced off of its wings was stunning,

“Whatcha looking at?” 

I turn to see Luca trying to look for what I was staring at

“Oh, there was just this Raven over-” I turn to see that the raven was gone, had it flown away somewhere?

“A raven? Are you sure? I don’t think anyone’s ever seen a raven around here, their not a common local bird, are you sure you didn’t mistake it for a shadow or something?” Luca looks at me skeptically

“Yeah, I’m sure it was just-”

“KAI! Get back here! It’s not that important!!” 

I look over to see a bunch of papers scattered along the road, it looks to be from Iri’s drawing pad, and Kai was picking them up,

“Dude you're going to get hit by a car!” Ray yells,

He wasn’t wrong, even though the road we’re on doesn’t get many cars, there are the occasional street racers or drunk drivers coming back from Shooting Stars Bar and we were also on top of a hill and if a car were to drive up they wouldn’t see him

“Rays right Kai!, there not that important I can just re-draw them!” Iris yells

“But these are for your college application, like hell I’m letting you give these masterpieces up”

He says as he continues to pick them up, 

“Ughhh” Iris groans as she runs over to help him pick them up “This is stupid you know, if mom ever found out about this she’d scream her head off, you know she hates it when we go into the streets, she’s always talking about how their dangerous and to stay out,” Iris says sternly 

“She won’t find out because no one’s going to tell her” he says smugly 

“Alright, alright can you two just hurry up I don’t like this, it’s dang-” Ray is cut off by a yellow light that quickly illuminated both of their faces and then disappears just as fast, 

Time felt frozen and the next few seconds felt like forever, the car racing through, not stopping, the sound of impact, the car leaving, Iris and Kai just laying there, not moving, not breathing, covered in blood and body mangled, it felt like a lifetime before I had realized what happened,

“IRIS! KAI!” I find myself screaming, my lungs felt like they might collapse I fall onto the ground gasping for air as a strange odd feeling creeps into my heart and into my body.

“Quinn!” Ray is by my side, “It’s okay, their okay” he keeps talking but I can’t hear anything, all I can see is their bodies lying there, dark red blood begins to pool around their bodies

I hear sirens, Luca had called for an ambulance, when did he do that? How long have we been standing here?

An ambulance pulls up and people get out, two of the people look over two where Iris and Kai were, they turn to each other and begin to talk, one person- a woman- ran over from the spot where Iris and Kai lay, she leaned in and told them something they reached into the back of the ambulance and grabbed something then started to head towards their bodies holding body bags, meant for the deceased…but they were okay, right? So why?

“NO!” I scream and run towards them both, I kneel down beside them and shake them both “Please, please come on get up, your fine so just get up please” 

Tears blur my vision, but I can still see, blood covers Iris’s face, her legs and arm are completely broken, Kai looked unrecognizable, his face was all busted up, and his body looked shattered, his back looked torn up so much that I thought I was about to be sick

An image flashed through my head, seconds before the crash, it was Kai moving his body to try and block Iris from the impact, a sob escapes my throat,

“Quinn!” 

I look back to see Ray and Luca running towards me, I also see the medics heading towards Kai’s body

“No! Stay back! Please…just” they ignored me and continued, “I said leave them!” I try to lung at one of the medics but Luca and Ray grab on to me, I try to fight them back, I scream and cry out

“Leave them! They're not dead! Let me go!” 

“Quinn!” Ray yells

Luca and Ray hold on to me tighter as I try to escape their grasp, I kick and scream and claw at them to let me go

“Please…Quinn” Luca’s voice sounded broken, I give up fighting, I turn around and cling on to them both, they wrap their arms around me and hold me tight, we sit there for who knows how long just stunted, holing each other as we broke down in each other's arms

It felt like forever before we got off that road, Ray’s mother came and picked us up, the drive home was brutal, filled with silence and tears.

It had been an hour later we had gotten the news, Kai…Iris...were both gone.

Sleep never came, no matter how much I wanted to escape reality, sleep never came for any of us, Luca and Ray would often come into my room at night and we’d all just lay there in silence, and before we knew it the day of the funeral had arrived

I changed into this black dress Ray’s mother had lent me, and a few minutes later Ray’s mother walked into the room 

“Quinn you look…beautiful,” She says sadly, she lays her hand on my cheek wiping away a tear from my eye,

“It feels like just yesterday you kids were having water fights and going on forest adventures”

The memories of our old days give me joy, but also they now give me pain, I remember one time when we were around 12, and we were having a water fight in Kai’s backyard and we were playing on the deck that was connected to their pool, Ray didn’t want to participate because he didn’t want to get soaked and all he wanted to do was read, he was more of a book worm back then he is now, he was sitting in one of the chairs on the porch, he needed to grab something from inside so he got up and cautiously walked to the door trying to avoid the water, but he was so busy watching out for Luca and Kai who were playing with the water he wasn’t paying much attention to anything else, Iris- who was running away from me - tripped and crashed into Ray, who then fell into the pool with a loud splash,  we all froze because we knew he was going to kill us, but when he popped up he just looked at us and laughed

“Gosh, you’re all annoying, come help me out” Ray held out his hand, We all looked at each other then back at him

“Come on guys, I’m not mad I just need help getting out”

we all cautiously went to help him, with two of us grabbing each arm because we weren't all that strong and we began to pull, but Ray also pulled back, and twice as hard, he was ridiculously strong for someone who just read books all day long, he had managed to pull all of us in, soaking us all, when I surfaced I saw that his face was bright red from laughter and he was sitting on the edge of the deck next to the pool the others all popped up as well and we all began to laugh.

Right then and there, I knew that without them the world would be a lot darker, and I couldn’t imagen a world like that, didn’t want to.

“Quinn?” Ray’s mother calls out to me snapping me out of my thoughts, I look up at her

“Sorry I was just….” a sob escapes my throat as tears flow down my face

“Oh honey” She wraps her arms around me as I wipe the tears from my face

“Mom, Quinn, we need to go or we’ll be late” Ray stands in the doorway, the dark circles around his eyes make him almost look dead,

“Okay…” 

Ray reaches out his hand to me and I take it as we head out the door

In the car, I sit between Luca and Ray, it feels weird, usually, the five of us would cram into the back, it didn’t matter if there was room up front or how tight it was in the back we just wanted to sit together, it was pure perfect chaos, but now that was gone.

We soon arrived at the ceremony, it was an open casket service, Ray and Luca walked with me down the aisle to see them.

Kai’s face was covered up with a cloth, his face had been too mangled to fix, the thought makes my stomach turn, Iris looked like a doll almost, her skin was pale ivory and the color of her hair had lightened, I stand in front of both of them not really knowing what to do or say or even how to feel

“I’m sorry” I whisper “I’m so sorry” 

“Sh*t…“This isn’t fair…This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Dang it Kai, i-if  you had just listened to us non-” Ray begins to sob which is unusual of him, I can’t remember the last time I saw him cry this hard, to be honest, I think this week was the first time I ever saw him cry

“It’s not fair” he falls onto his knees and cries, 

Luca and I kneel down next to him crying and wrap our arms around his shoulders 

He was right, it wasn’t fair, we were all supposed to go to college together, get married together, raise our kids together, live and die together, it had felt like my heart had been pierced with an ice-cold blade, everything felt painful, it felt empty, numb.

“It’s time to say goodbye…”  Luca says sorrowfully after a while

Tears heavily flow down my face blurring my vision, I wipe them away 

We stand there, one last time as a group, one last time as a full family.

“It’s not goodbye forever, we’ll see each other again, we’ll hear your laughter wherever we go, see your smile in our dreams, and carry your heart with us always, we love you both with all of our hearts and not one day will pass by that we won’t know that you're with us, and not a day will pass without missing you, for now…Goodbye” Ray chokes on the last word

The ceremony ends faster than expected, most people have already left, and I think we’re all that's left at this point, dark clouds began to consume the sky and a soft cold breeze blows through as the rain drops slowly began to fall.

I hear a loud caw coming from the nearby willow tree, I turn to see the Ravan from before, don’t ask me how I knew but I knew it was the same one as it locked eyes with me, another raven flew down and landed next to the first one, the first raven looked at the new one, rubbed its head against the others, and then looked back at me, they both let out a screeching caw and flew off.

“What are you looking at?” I turn to see Luca next to me

“Oh it was…it was nothing” 

A few weeks passed before they caught the person who killed Iris and Kai in the hit-and-run. I didn’t really care too much about it though, I know I should be relieved that they both got justice, but what good does that justice do if they're already gone? 

After everything had happened, Ray, Luca, and I had taken a gap year before going to college, I think it would have just been too much without Kai and Iris.

Even after a year of them being gone it still feels unreal, I keep expecting them to run up to us any moment, but that's not our reality anymore. Sometimes the pain catches me off guard and it just feels like someone’s ripped my heart out of my chest and just left me there to die slowly. Some days I’m glad for the pain, it just reminds me they weren't some dream, they were real, all of it was real, the bad and the good, and that's something I don’t want to ever forget, my love for them, their love for me, this goodbye isn’t forever, we’ll see each other again, and when we do, we’ll stay by each others side for eternity.