Goodbye
The message came in the middle of the afternoon. A simple text, just three words. Haley’s gone.
At first, it didn’t register. The words sat there on the screen, staring back at me, but they felt distant, like they belonged to someone else's life. I blinked, set my phone down, and went back to work. Emails to answer, tasks to finish—life didn’t stop because of a text.
But then I opened social media. Haley’s face was everywhere. A flood of posts, pictures, and memories, each one a quiet reminder that she was really... gone. Smiling photos from birthdays and vacations, random jokes she had posted, and messages from people who, like me, were trying to grasp the impossible.
But all I could think about was the crash. Haley alone in the car. The flashing lights, the sirens that came too late, the quiet that must have followed. It replays in my mind over and over—was she scared? Did she know it was the end? Was she thinking of us, of home, of all the things she’d never get to do? The thought wraps around me like a weight I can’t shake off. I wonder if she felt alone in those last moments, and it crushes me every time.
Still, the day moved on. I answered calls, made dinner, laughed at something on TV, all while carrying the weight of her absence. It was strange how life didn't pause, how the world didn’t crumble the way I thought it should.
Instead, I found myself doing the most ordinary things—folding laundry, walking to the store, listening to music—while a quiet part of me whispered, Haley’s not here anymore. And that image—her in the car, the loneliness of it—stuck with me through it all.
And that was the hardest part. Knowing that I'd keep going. That days would turn into weeks, and weeks into months. That I'd live with her memory tucked into the corners of my mind, showing up in the smallest, most unexpected moments.
Because Haley was gone. And I was still here.
