Peace

She finally found peace within the darkness. Where the pain faded away with the lights. Thinking back, she smiled for the first time in months.

"Finally, I feel no more pain," she said with that smile that could light up an entire night sky. She turns to her best friend Kyle, "Is this what peace feels like?"

Kyle, with tear filled eyes and a plastered on smile, looked back to his withering best friend, "Yes, Leyah, there's no more pain, only love," he whispers gripping her hand.

She looks off into the corner, glassy-eyed and as if she sees something that isn't really there. Smiling she says, with the goofiest grin, and a look of pure love, "They say I'm ready, Kyle. It's time to go home!"

He grips her hand tightly in attempt to hold back the tears betraying eyes threaten to release.

"It's okay, Leyah. You can go home, now. We will be fine."

She looks, one last time, at the friend who has loved her unconditionally, through her every trial and error.

And with every last bit of strength she had in her, she whispers with one last smile, "I love you, Kyle."

The grip withing Kyle's hand becomes limp. And for the first time in a year, Kyle allowed himself to cry. He cried for Leyah, for her family, her friends who couldn't make it in time. He cried for the life and chance they never got to have. He cried till no more tears could let out. Then, with the strength of an army, stood up, walked out of the hospital room, left town, and never looked back.
"Peace," he said as his last words to his hometown.
"Peace, it really is"