It was because of him that I am the way I am now. It is because of him, that a life ended before it began. I wish I could see her one more time. I would give everything just to kiss her. To touch her. To smell her lingering scent one more time. I still have her favorite hoodie she let me borrow. The smell has faded now. I look around the room, and all traces of her are gone. Except for the bracelet. I trace my fingers over it. I feel the words etched into the metal. I run my fingers over them slowly. Taking them in. Breathing them in. “Coming on to our future. We remember our eternal love.”

My mom use to say, “No one finds their soul mate at 16!” But I did. I found it. And like the naïve girl I was, I lost it. Too stupid to get it back. When I finally swallowed my pride, it was too late. She was gone. They found the letter she had wrote. It was still on her body when the cut her down. Clutched in her hand. They EMT pried it out. And kept it in his back pocket.

I got a call that night. My mom said she was rushed to the hospital. I asked if she was ok. I heard my mother cry. I never heard her cry before. Especially, not for her. She hated her. Blamed her. And yet, here she was crying for her. I knew. I knew right then and there, that I was to late. I had waited to long.

I am sitting here now at her gravestone. There wild flowers and weeds growing all around it. You can barely see her name. It seems as though, no one has been here in a long time. No one. She died the one way she was afraid to the most. Alone. She died alone. I can’t help but think if I had talked to her, returned her phone calls, listened to her…LISTENED to her, that she would still be alive today.

But I should probably take you back to that night. The night the angels cried. This is my story. My name is Spencer Carlin. And here lies the only person I have ever loved and will ever love. My Ashley. Ashley Davies.