It happened in the middle of the night while I'm wrapped up in Finn. His sleepy blue eyes are the first thing I see when I open mine, "West your phone's been going off, it's Nate," I don't know if we were both unaffected by the phone call because it was 3:00 in the morning and it was my phone going off instead of his. Nate wasn't drunk on some field and needed to be picked up like Maddy would have been.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Westlyn, where the fuck are you?" Nate rarely curses at me. His voice was sort of high pitched and I could hear the thickness of tears behind the anger.

"I was sleeping. What's going on?" I'm awake now. My heart pounding in my ears, my palms were sweating, Finn's eyes were on me.

"It's Mom, West. It isn't good. Get to the hospital now."

It happened in the middle of the night as I fumbled to get my clothes back on and rush out of the front door.

"Westlyn, wait. Let me drive you at least." Finn says from the doorway of the house, he is struggling into a shirt.

"Maddy never came home last night and you don't need to wake up Peyton." My voice is calmer than I feel.

"She never came home?" He is looking back towards the house and I am getting into my car and trying to get out of there as quickly as possible. The roads are deserted as I speed towards the Emergency room entrance.

"Nate?" I say running into the waiting room and finding him with his elbows resting on his knees. My brother is a big guy, he has always towered over me and outweighed me by so many pounds, but right now he looks so so tiny. Like even a harsh breeze could knock him off of that hard plastic chair and onto the floor.

He looks up at me and I see the tears streaming down his face. His freckles are present from the summer sun and I wonder if mine are too. We are the same Nate and I in all the ways that make us family and I've been absent for so long.

"She's not going to make it much longer. Dad is in there now. You should probably go and say goodbye," his voice cracks and the tears fall harder and faster than before. He has always been a silent crier while I'm a messy sobber. My eyes fill up.

I walk down the long white corridor and try to control my breathing because I need to be strong for everyone. I need to try to keep Dad and Nate from falling apart.

But I know I'm too late. I'm too late because I've spent the last month of Mom's life with Finn and Peyton and avoiding Maddy's party invites. I chose wrong. I chose to leave Mom when she needed me most in the hopes that she would miss me enough to chose a different path. But why would I think that she would change her course when I knew I wouldn't change mine?

"Dad?" I whisper as I walk into her room. She is so tiny beneath the thin blue hospital blanket. Her bones jut out from her collar bone and her breathing is so soft I can't see the movement.

Dad just nods and walks out of the room. I can see the dried trails of his own tears on his newly wrinkled cheeks.

"Mom?" I say while sitting down in the seat besides her bed and holding her hand in mine. Her hand is not the same hand I grew up with. It is not the hand that I held when I was too scared to go down the water slide at the hotel we were staying at while on vacation, it is not the hand that squeezed my shoulder when she gave me "the talk" when I turned fourteen, it is not the hand that cooked organic dinners night after night, and it is not the hand that wiped every tear that fell down my cheeks throughout my childhood. This hand is pale, wrinkled, and hooked up with so many wires I can't trace her veins like I used to.

"Westie," she smiles and it looks almost painful.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner," My voice wobbles with the tears I am holding back.

"Don't be sorry, baby. You're here now."

Her eyes slowly open and close again like it is too much work to stay awake and maybe it is.

"West, I want you to know how proud I am of you," she takes a deep breath and coughs, "follow your dreams and your own path even if it is not the one that everyone else wants you to take." And I know she means my choice to delay college.

"Thank you. I love you so much," and I cry so hard and fast that I can barely breath myself. And I hate myself for making this my last few moments with Mom.

"I love you too, more than you can even imagine." And I know that she somehow held out until I could get here. I knew over the last month that she was fading and fading fast. That the doctors told her that they were out of options but I'm still not ready to let her go.

But it's time.

Nate and Dad come back into the room and we all sit around together for the last time as a full and complete family. Until Mom breathes her last shallow breath and we all kiss her forehead and tell her we love her one last time.

We walk out of the hospital all lumped together and we split up again because I have my own car and they came together. And I almost tell them that I can't be alone right now but I think alone is exactly what I need.

"We'll meet you at home?" Dad asks as he wipes his eyes for the millionth time. I nod.

I get into my car and I cry and cry and cry and I wonder how people get through this. How can I move on without her? I wonder how the world doesn't stop just because my world fell apart. I wonder how I will find a path to take when I am never on solid ground.

I wonder who I will be in one more month when I say goodbye to more people I care about and finally free myself of this town.

Finally I start the car and start driving towards my house. A house that will never be full again without Mom's love, voice, and energy.