Your fingerprint never fades from the people you touch.
"Happy twenty second birthday, Caroline!" her mother and father, Aidan, and Allie had all watched her blow out her candles. They smiled and laughed, but after her party, they all did the same thing they did every year.
Tyler Hawkins
Beloved Son
& Brother
6/16/1979-9/11/2001
Happy fucking birthday Caroline. She shifted her weight, staring at the green grass under which the charred, mangled remains of the only man in her life to this day lay. Her older brother, her role model, her comforter, her rock.
She let herself cry for the first time in ten years. Allie did too. They held eachother and cried for their loss, and for everyone who, like them, watched their brothers and sons and beloveds fall to their death in a pillar of smoke on this day. There were no words for the emptiness that they felt in that moment, but there didn't need to be. Her mother had her own silent tears running down her face.
She couldn't even begin to understand her mother's loss. She had lost both of her sons in less than ten years, so tragically, so needlessly. And in all her life all she had known was that loss. First Michael, the man that had been Tyler's older brother, his rock and protector, his best friend and role model, his everything. Then Tyler himself. From what they saw of the plane crash and knew of the incident, the plane had hit the floor that Tyler was on, and He had probably seen it coming. While they took comfort in that his death was instantaneous rather than the slow miserable death that many others suffered who died suffocated or trapped, they were horrified at what the last moments of his life might have been like. Of course, there were thousands of families who felt the same, so at least they were not alone. They even started the Tyler's Notebook Foundation, a system of support groups and psychological and financial assistance for the victims and families of 9/11 that stretched across the country.
She and Allie and Aidan had become very close since he'd been gone. Aside from Tyler's Notebook, which the three of them attended regularly, they all had notebooks of their own, and were now roommates as she followed her brother's footsteps and attended college at the New York University, working with all the books just like he had.
Aidan had graduated from school Magna Cum Laude and gone on to get his masters and settle peacefully into his career. Allie had become an alcoholic but gone through rehab and had been clean for six years. Afterwards she got back into school and went to law school, Passing the bar exam. She was now looking at a career as a district attorney. And Caroline... well, she decided to be an art teacher. Just like her teacher who Tyler had made fun of by speaking fake French that day that those girls had bullied her. She remembered that day like it was yesterday. And his face, the smile lines and his clear gray-hazel eyes and his rich voice. And the stupid bike which was now her prized possesion.
"Hey." Aidan gently touched her shoulder, snapping her out of her vacant stare of the grass and her trip down memory lane. "Are you ready to go?"
She took a deep breath, a hollow smile spreading across her face. "Yes. Let's go."
She put her ear buds in and watched the artist get to work. She brought a detailed drawing of the New York skyline with the Twin Towers and And tyler's name which faded from the skyline which was turned into the stencil that was being tattooed onto her back. The last of the work was being done today, so the tattoo would be finished on the anniversary of her birth and his death.
The artist was simply doing black and white, so not much ink was needed. She closed her eyes as the sting of the needle caused her momentarily to tense. She relaxed then, reaching for Aidan's hand. He readily took it, watching with a mixture of melancholy and pride.
"There you go. Would you like to see the finished result before I cover it?"
She didn't trust her voice, so she just nodded. Aidan smiled a shaky lopsided smile, and let her hand go. She looked at her back and cried. It was just how she had envisioned it. She could almost see him tattooed onto her back the way he was on her heart.
"Shh..." Aidan came up beside her, his own Tyler 9/11 tattoo showing underneath the sleeve of his shirt. "Don't cry. He'll always be with you now."
she clung to him. "I miss him so much."
"Me too, Maestro." he closed his eyes and a tear dropped unceremoniously into her hair. "Me too."
She smiled up at him. "Thank you."
He gave her his shaky smile.
She walked home, hand in hand with her brother's best friend. She would never forget him, and she would wear him now for everyone to see.
She would be his fingerprint.