Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter Six: Progress

…

A week later, in spite of her better judgment and against every ounce of pride she had, Kari went to see T.K. He looked annoyed when he found her at his door, but let her in anyway. He gestured wordlessly to a chair and she sat down, a small smile playing across her lips. Even when he was trying to be cold, he still had manners.

She swallowed hard; she had spent so much time thinking about whether or not he'd let her into his room that she had not considered what she'd say when she actually got inside. Her eyes wandered around his things, coming to rest on a picture he kept on his desk. When she reached out for it, he broke the silence.

"What do you see when you look at that picture?"

"What?"

"When you look at that picture," he said, "where do your eyes go to first?"

The answer seemed obvious to her. "I look at Tai and Sora first," she said. "Why? Don't you?"

"No, I don't. I look at you."

Her eyes drifted across the photo to where she stood, looking so young that she was almost unrecognizable. "Wow, I look different!" she said. "I haven't looked at myself in this picture in years."

"And yet you pick it up almost every time you're in here," he said pointedly. She looked at him, not understanding the point he was trying to make. "You can't keep going back to them, Kari. They're gone, and I miss them, but I'm not going to punish myself for how they ended up. They wouldn't have wanted that from us. They'd want us to move on, and you're the only one who's letting them down."

His words stung in a way that she couldn't describe, probably because it was the undeniable truth. Now matter how hard she tried to hang on to Tai and Sora, no matter how hard she tried to stay the same and not move on, she knew that she couldn't do it any longer. She had to let them go. She owed them that much. But how could she possibly move on?

"I don't think I can do that," she said.

"If you want to keep living in the past," he told her, "then go ahead and do it. But from now on, you'll be doing it alone." Without another word, he walked out of the room. She watched him go, and it was only after he had left her that she began to realize he had ever been hers to begin with. Kari had taken Tai's presence for granted so much that his death did not seem real, even now. It had been so sudden, so cruel, and she could not help but feel that it had been the universe's way of punishing her for being so cocky in the first place. Because of this, she had never treated T.K. as a guarantee. In her mind, he was here today, but he could just as easily be gone tomorrow. And since he could leave at any time, it simply did not make sense to maintain an attachment to him.

But if Tai had to die at nineteen, would she have preferred to have not known him? Would she wish to have been in a different family, to have a brother who wasn't Tai, or perhaps no brother at all? She could not imagine a childhood full of someone else's memories – memories of a different family, a family of which Tai had not been a member. So if she was grateful to have had Tai even for that short time, why was it different for the others? Her loved ones were not immortal. She could wake up one day and not have a mother or a best friend or both. If she could have known beforehand that Tai would die, she would have spent every second with him, committing everything he did – everything he was – to memory. Why was she pushing T.K. away for the same reason she would have only pulled her brother even closer?

Tai and Sora would never get to laugh or cry or kiss again. They would never feel the rain on their skin or see a bird soaring overhead. They would never again fly a kite, drive a car, or eat too much pizza. Their time was over; it had run out. But why had Kari spent so long feeling like she didn't deserve to do these things simply because they were no longer able to? Why hadn't she realized it was her responsibility to do all of these things and more, and to do them with every fiber of her being? She was living life not just for herself, but for the two of them as well.

Maybe grief didn't end. Maybe she would always feel like this, at least a little bit. But it was there to remind her of all that she had lost, and that was okay. She would take all the pain in the world as long as she could keep the memories, too.

Maybe the day would never come when she could watch a soccer game and not hear her brother's cheers in the back of her mind, or when she could go into an ice cream shop and not immediately remember that Tai had always liked two scoops of bubblegum in a waffle cone best.

But if a hot summer day ever found Kari kicking a soccer ball around with T.K., or ordering bubblegum ice cream, and not thinking of Tai – well, that would be a whole new tragedy entirely.

Kari returned the picture to its spot on T.K.'s desk and leaned back in her chair. He would come back to his room eventually, and when he did, everything would be different.

…

"Tell me about Sora, Mimi."

Mimi didn't even know where to begin.

"Sora was my best friend. She was my childhood. She was my sister. Every memory that I have, she was part of. She was a part of me."

"And then she killed herself."

Mimi flinched at the therapist's words. She could feel Matt's eyes on her as he sat quietly beside her in the cold office.

"How does that make you feel, Mimi?"

She choked back a laugh. "How do you think that makes me feel?" she asked. Therapy was every bit as bad as it sounded, and this was exactly why she had avoided it for so long. But after the blowout she'd had with Matt, he had finally asked her to see someone, and she had agreed. "There were people dying all around us in that school, and for whatever reason, she came out alive. And then, yeah, as you said, she killed herself. She did a terrible, stupid, selfish thing, but she was my best friend and I am allowed to miss her. I'm allowed to hate her for leaving me. I'm allowed to hate myself for not being able to stop her. I'm allowed to feel whatever the hell I want, and I don't think Matt understands that."

"Would you like to respond to that?" the therapist asked, looking at her husband.

"I do understand that," he said. "I understand it a lot better than she seems to realize. Tai was my best friend, and he died too. Only he didn't have a choice the way Sora did, and frankly I think that is a much more tragic way to go."

Mimi looked at Matt, shocked. He had never admitted that to her before. She felt the need to defend Sora, but against what? She wasn't entirely sure that she disagreed with his statement.

Their therapist looked to her for a response. "The difference," she began to explain to them, "is that Tai's death doesn't leave questions that keep Matt up at night. Tai died because four psychopaths did something horrendous, and that's the end of the story. But Sora – I mean, what the hell could she have been thinking?" Mimi felt tears sting her eyes. "Why couldn't she have just talked to me about it? Did she stop to think about what this would do to the rest of us? Did she do it spontaneously, or was it a thought that she carried around for weeks, torturing her so much that she finally had to go through with it?"

"It's more than that," Matt said. "Those questions are haunting and I get that. But it's more than that." He looked away from Mimi. "She thinks she's dealing with this, but she isn't. And I'm scared for her."

"You're scared for her in what sense?"

"I'm scared of what this is doing to her. I'm scared that she's going to get so lost in this that she … does the same thing that Sora did. I know she needs to deal with this and get past it, but I'm afraid to force her because I'm terrified that I'm going to push her over the edge."

"I didn't know you felt like that," she whispered, shocked. For the first time in a long time, Mimi felt guilt and shame wash over her. Neither one could look at the other.

"How could you? It's not like we can talk about it. I know you're holding back," Matt said. "But I don't know what you're holding back. And selfishly, I've been too afraid to ask."

"Do you know what he's referring to?" the therapist asked her.

"I …" she began, but her voice died out. She wasn't quite sure that she knew how to verbalize this particular emotion. "Sora was more than just my best friend. It was as if she were an extension of my own body, my own mind. She knew me so well – better than I knew myself, really. And I had always thought that I knew her just as well. So how didn't I see this coming? We were so mad at each other that summer … I wasn't there for her … and if I had been, maybe she would still be here. I don't know how to live with that kind of guilt."

"You mentioned that you and Sora had a falling out," the therapist said, "but you also said that she phoned you before she killed herself."

"Yeah," Mimi said. "She called me the night before."

"Do you think it was a cry for help, or was she just calling to say goodbye to her best friend?"

Mimi had gone over that conversation so many times in her head, but it had never once occurred to her that Sora could have just been calling to say goodbye. Could it be possible that Sora wasn't silently begging for help, laying out hints that she desperately hoped Mimi would pick up on in time to stop her?

"I don't know," Mimi confessed.

"Do you think Sora would want you to feel like this?"

"No, probably not. But we'll never know for sure, will we? She's dead. She and Tai aren't just on vacation. They aren't coming back, and I feel like I'm the only person who realizes this."

"Why is that?"

"Because if Matt really, fully comprehended the fact that our best friends are dead, he wouldn't be this strong. He wouldn't be able to get out of bed every day."

Matt turned to her. "I get out of bed every day because I have you," he said. "I get out of bed every day because even though our good days have been few and far between lately, there's always the possibility that we will have another one. And when we do, I don't want to miss that."

"Our time is almost up for today. Is there anything you want to add before we end our session, Mimi?"

"I just feel like Sora is the only person who can make me feel better, but she's the reason that I'm so messed up in the first place. I feel lost without her. Who am I supposed to spend Saturdays with? Who do I to tell my dreams to every morning? Who can I go to movies with? Who do I vent to, or laugh at … who do I confide in?"

"I can think of one person," her therapist said, looking at Matt.

…