“Seren…” I said slowly, uncertain of what the consequences of her understanding might be.
“Why?” she asked sharply. The word cut into me like a blade.
I exhaled hard, shaking my head without thinking. She didn’t realize what she was asking—did she? Didn’t she see that the real questionwasn’t why did I, it waswhy wouldn’t I.
“I… I don’t know, Seren,” I said, my breath unsteady, the weight of the moment pressing into every inch of me. “I didn’t know it was him. I didn’t know he was going to die. I had my phone in my hand, and then I saw it was him, and I just—” My voice fractured. “I just couldn’t. I couldn’t call for help because—”
“No.” She cut me off sharply, holding her hand out between us. “No, that’s not what I asked.” I stopped, staring at her, waiting for her to finish. “Why didn’t you trust me?” My mouth fell slightly open. I could hear the emotion packed into every word, thick and trembling. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, tears spilling freely now. “You could have told me. I would have been there for you, Austin. Just like you were there for me. I would have been there for you too. You shouldn’t have had to deal with that alone. I would never want that for you.”
“No, you couldn’t have, Seren,” I said immediately, the words leaving my mouth before I could stop them. Regret followed instantly, but didn’t she see? Didn’t she understand why I couldn’t have told her?
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice breaking in a way that made my chest ache.
“I couldn’t have told you,” I said quietly. “You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have grieved the way you needed to grieve if you had known what really happened. You needed to believe he died because it was his time. Nothing more. Nothing less.”I swallowed hard. “You barely survived that, Seren. You barely made it through.”
She shook her head, disbelief etched across her face. “Austin, can’t you hear what I’m saying? You should have trusted me to make that decision for myself. You took that choice away from me. I needed to know. Not just because it affected me, but because that’s what friends do. That’s what best friends do. They trust each other.” She held my gaze the entire time, not letting me look away.
“Seren, listen—” I started, but she cut me off again.
“I trusted you!” Her voice rose, then cracked, the sound breaking apart as tears streaked down her face. “I trusted you with everything. I told you everything. The bad. The things I never wanted to tell anyone else. I told you because I trusted you.” Her voice trembled. “And I thought you would do the same for me.”
“You don’t think I hated it?” I shot back, my own voice unraveling. “You don’t think I hated keeping this from you? I hated every second of it. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you everything I’ve done.” I shook my head, breath shaking. “But I was scared, Seren. I was scared.”
“What?” She looked stunned by my words. “Scared of what?”
“Scared of what you would think of me,” I admitted quietly, half turning away like I couldn’t withstand her gaze. “I was scared you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore. And… I couldn’t—” My voice faltered. “I can’t lose you. Not in my life.”
Seren let out a long, heavy sigh, the kind that felt like it came from the deepest part of her lungs. She stayed silent long enough that I turned back toward her, needing to see her face, needing to know what she was thinking. I wasn’t sure why I still braced myself for the worst.
“Austin,” she said once our eyes met again, gently shaking her head, the motion small and unsteady, like she might tip over if the wind shifted. “You know better.”
“No,” I protested, my voice tight, my throat feeling impossibly narrow.
“You do,” she said again, softer this time. “You know I could never leave you. I need you. You have a part of my soul.” Her voice wavered. “Our friendship is one of the most important things in my life.”
I inhaled deeply, like I needed to absorb every word, like they were oxygen. I knew she was telling the truth. I had always known she loved me. Still, some broken part of my mind pushed back, whispering that my heart had to be wrong. How could she love someone who had done what I’d done, and then lied about it too?
“You can’t do that,” she whispered, pulling me back from my thoughts. “I know some things are hard to share. But you have to.”
She looked exhausted as she spoke, and I knew it wasn’t just from the chaos of the day. It was from the truth settling into her bones. Seren’s pain had always been complex, layered, impossible to simplify. I had seen it the day she learned Jax had died. I had lived inside it for weeks afterward, watching her carry grief that never truly lightened.
When Jax died, the emotions that erupted inside her were so overwhelming that she seemed completely stilled by them. First, there was relief. Then, pain. And then, because she felt pain, there was confusion. Guilt followed. She grieved him, even though she fought against it, even though part of her didn’t want to.
But she kept saying something in those first few days that will never leave my mind. She would stare off into the distance, lost somewhere I couldn’t reach, and then suddenly she would turn and look at me.
“Is it simple?”
The first day, she asked it like a genuine question, like she was searching for an answer.Is it simple?I didn’t have one.
The next day, it changed. There was hesitation threaded through the words, uncertainty woven into the space between them. I don’t think Seren was asking whether life was simple. I think she was asking whether it was still survivable.
“Is it… simple?”
By the third day, the hesitation was gone. So was the question.
“It’s not simple,” she told me. “It’s not simple.”
I didn’t ask what she meant—not then. Not until months later. When I finally did, she sighed and looked startled, like she hadn’t realized she’d ever said those words out loud, like they were only meant to live inside her head. Eventually, though, she explained. It took time for her to find the language. At first, her thoughts came out tangled and fractured, impossible to repeat. But in the end, her conclusion was clear. She said Jax’s death wasn’t simple, even if it looked that way at first glance.
