I drop to my knees so hard the shock rattles straight up my spine.Something inside me gives—quiet, but final.A kind of breaking that doesn’t make a sound but still takes you out at the knees.
“Fuck, Jake.”My voice comes out torn to ribbons.“Fuck.”
The dirt gives under my hands, cold and soft.I dig into it until my nails scrape the mud, until it burns.I want it to hurt.I want something to hurt the way losing him does.
“I can’t even remember the last real thing I said to you,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out.“Isn’t that fucked?I can’t remember.”
The silence is thick enough to choke on.
“I should’ve been here.I should’ve…” My throat locks up, refusing to let anything else through.“I should’ve saved you.I should’ve done something.Fuck, anything.”
A tear hits the dirt and it disappears instantly, swallowed up like the ground is hungry for whatever pieces of me I have left.
A laugh slips out of me, but it’s wrong—ugly and sharp.
“It was supposed to be me.Do you hear me?Me.You weren’t supposed to go first.You had everything ahead of you.And I had… fuck, I had nothing.”
The headstone doesn’t care.It just sits there, cold and still and merciless.
“I failed you,” I say, the words splintering in my chest as they come out.
My hands shake as I touch the stone.
“Eighteen years,” I croak.“You got eighteen fucking years.”
The weight of that number crushes something in me.
“You died,” I whisper.“And I’m still here.Why?How does that make sense to anyone?”
The wind picks up like it’s trying to drown me out, but I lean into it.
“That night,” I breathe, eyes burning, “I see it every time I blink.The look on your face right before the gun went off.You weren’t scared.You looked at me like I could fix it.Like I always would.”
The numbness cracks open, and what’s underneath isn’t pain—it’s this vast, empty ache that swallows everything and gives nothing back.
“What am I supposed to do now?”I ask him, knowing I won’t get an answer but begging anyway.“Tell me, Jake.Because I keep filling the space you left with shit that kills me slower, and it still doesn’t touch the hole you blew through me.”
My fingers curl into the dirt like I’m trying to anchor myself to him.
“My whole life was built around you.Protecting you.Protecting Mom.And now you’re gone, and I don’t even know who the fuck I’m supposed to be without you.”
The night doesn’t move, the stars don’t flicker.The world doesn’t give a single shit that I’m falling apart and why should it?
“I keep waiting for you to come home,” I whisper, voice thin and wrecked.“Just walk through the door like none of this happened.Tell me I don’t have to feel this anymore.”My chest caves in on itself.“But you’re not coming back.You’re never coming back.”
I lie down on the grave, cheek pressed to the cold earth.It feels like the only thing real left in my life.
“I don’t know what to do Jake,” I breathe.“I don’t know how to keep going anymore.I’m tired.So fucking tired and I just want it to stop.”
For a long moment, I think about staying right here.
Letting the ground take me too.
Letting everything finally stop.
“You think there’s something after this?”My words slur together.“Somewhere you get to go where it doesn’t hurt all the time?”My throat burns raw.“I hope you’re there and I hope you're happy.”
The pills from earlier are wearing off—whatever the hell it was I took—and my body shakes like it’s being dragged back into a reality I don’t want.
