When You’re Gone Novels & Stories

It seemed he still couldn’t accept that Oprah had indeed left this world. Until one night, Burgess couldn't sleep anymore; he had perhaps slept too much. He covered the urn with a blanket, got out of bed, and stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, lighting one cigarette after another. He seemed to see Oprah again. He blew out smoke rings and muttered, "Oprah, you better not let me find you!" The cigarette only made him more awake, as if every cell in his body reminded him that Oprah had passed away, leaving only an urn behind.

Connor would rot away the rest of his blind life in prison. I knew I had only moments left before I had to leave him, so I whispered in his ear, "I hope that in my next life, I will never meet someone like you again." I watched as a tear slid down his cheek. Perhaps he had heard me or could sense my presence somehow. No matter. None of that mattered anymore. I could finally move on.

Gone. It was such a simple word, but the weight of it—of her absence—was unbearable. The room felt sunken, empty in a way it had never felt before. I had never noticed how much her presence filled this space until she wasn’t there. Now, the silence seemed to wrap around me like a suffocating blanket. The air felt colder, and the light from the lamp suddenly too harsh, too bright. Everything was wrong.

‎"Now you'll be gone, and I'll have the pack all to myself." ‎Liam walked away, leaving me to my imminent fate.

The storm hit just as our graduation gala ended. The lights went out. Rain swallowed the front steps. In the dark, I called my fiancé, my childhood best friend, and my brother. None of them answered. With seven percent left on my phone, I huddled against the auditorium wall. Then headlights swept across the windows, and I saw my twin sister. My fiancé was carrying her to the car. My best friend held the door while my brother kept her graduation cap and flowers dry beneath his jacket. All three of them had come for her. Not one had remembered me. They remembered the strawberry cream cake she loved, but never my dairy allergy. They helped her study while I figured things out alone. Even my fia

“Is there someone else already?” “No, I’m too broken for that. I’m just happy without you, and that’s enough for me right now,” I stand up, smooth out my top with a sigh. “Goodbye, Zander. I hope you find happiness with someone else.” I walk away. I slip into Bryson’s office, locking the door behind me, and collapse in a chair. I pull out the breast pump and pump my milk as I silently cry.

“Jillian, I promise I will come back.” “When?” “On your 21st birthday, I will come to you. I will come back and change our fates,” he whispered and pull me close to him for a tight embrace. “I’m sorry if I have to disappear that long. There are just things that we can’t control.” “Why?” “Some things are fated to happen.” His last words are like the wind’s whisper and I can no longer feel his presence. He vanished through thin air and I didn’t even see how it happened since my eyes are both tightly closed. He is gone.

Her laughter, her warmth – all now confined to the realm of bittersweet recollections. As the last person offered their condolences, I found myself alone in front of the makeshift grave. The weight of the moment pressed upon me, a heavy ache in my chest that refused to dissipate. The realization hit me – she was truly gone, and the void she left seemed insurmountable.

When I was seven, I stole a phone and called my mother's family. That was how I finally got her out of the compound where my father had kept her prisoner. When my grandfather stormed into the cellar, Mom was chained by the neck, with bloodstained whips scattered at her feet. He beat my father nearly to death. The man spent the rest of his life paralyzed and bedridden. Before Mom got into the car, she reached for me through her tears. "Evan, come with me." I grabbed the hem of her coat—and then I remembered my previous life. Back then, she had taken me with her. Her family had never accepted her for bringing home the son of the man who destroyed her life. She endured years of contempt for

He glanced at Caspian, who was staring at him as if he were a death-row inmate, before taking a deep breath. "I want to know the reason you broke up with me. Maybe… Maybe… if I explain properly, you'll still come back to me." I stared at him in surprise, feeling dumbfounded. He must have lost his marbles. How can I still get back together with him after we broke up for so many years? Caspian spoke up in a cold and threatening tone, clenching his fists so tightly I could hear his joints pop. "You should get out of my sight while I'm still willing to let you live, Jayden! Otherwise…"