I stayed where I was, half-hidden by the trees. Elliot didn’t know he wasn’t alone. But something in him felt it.
He stood with his arms wrapped around his chest, staring into the distance. The wind lifted his hair. His throat worked like he was trying to swallow something too big to hold.
I wanted to call his name. Wrap my arms around him and apologize for all the birthdays I missed. The years I left empty. The words rose and died behind my teeth.
Elliot exhaled like it hurt. He was held together by splinters. Some invisible force had wound us back into the same place—fragile, quiet, yet unbreakable.
I would not leave him again.
Not this time.
Elliot shudderedas the wind picked up and darkness stole the last light of the day. With a final lingering glance, Elliot trudged away from Natalie’s grave toward the road. I followed at adistance, letting the shadows take the blame for me. It felt wrong. Invasive, almost, but stopping felt worse. Like abandoning something fragile in the open.
Their house—once a beating heart—was cloaked in shadows as I let myself in. The golden light that used to spill through the windows had been swallowed by a sky smeared with storm clouds, the horizon trembling with the threat of thunder. The familiar scent of lavender and fresh linen had been replaced by the sharp tang of grief and stale whiskey.
Everything looked the same.
Yet none of it felt real.
The framed photos on the hallway table. The faint indent in the couch where she used to sit. It all felt like a set built around a life that had already ended.
David sat slumped on the couch, still wearing his funeral suit like he’d been embalmed in it. A half-full glass dangled from his fingers like a rosary; the bottle kept vigil at his foot.
“David, I…” I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” The words felt hollow even as they left my mouth.
Minutes passed before he looked up. His eyes weren’t just empty—they were a wreckage. His mouth twitched into something like a sneer, then collapsed into a broken sound halfway between a sob and a breath that forgot how to leave his lungs. This wasn’t the grief of a funeral. This was the aftermath of a life shattered.
I took a step forward. “What can I do?”
He grunted. Turned back to the television. He wasn’t watching it, just letting it exist so he didn’t have to.
“Is Elliot home?” I asked.
Silence.
A door slammed on the floor above. Footsteps thundered down the stairs. My chest seized. I followed the sound just in time to see Elliot burst into the kitchen like something chasedhim, limbs chaotic, trembling. Cupboard doors flew open and banged shut. Something hit the floor with a hollow crack.
By the time I reached the doorway, he was on the floor. Curled tight around himself like a body trying to fold inward and disappear. Natalie’s favorite mug lay beside him, unbroken. The faded smear of her lipstick still clinging to the rim.
That undid something in me.
He was shaking hard enough that his teeth clicked.
I tried to breathe around the ache in my chest. “Elliot?—”
“I can’t breathe in here,” he snapped, and the edge in his voice was new — sharp, almost angry, like he needed the pain to point somewhere else. “She’s everywhere… and yet she’s not even here.”
His fingers dug into his arms like he was trying to hold himself together by force.
I froze. Felt the taut wire of his pain snap tight in my chest, sharp enough to steal my breath. Every instinct in me surged forward.Cover him, shield him, take it from him if I could.
But I didn’t reach for him. I didn’t trust myself not to make it worse. Didn’t trust that if I touched him, I wouldn’t pull him apart trying to hold him together. So I stayed still. Held myself back with everything I had.
He bolted. Out the back door and across the yard. I followed, boots abandoned, grass freezing my feet, rain soaking my shirt before I noticed. The wind howled as we reached the cliffs. The ocean below churned violently, waves smashing against rocks like the world itself was grieving.
Lightning fractured the sky, illuminating him for a fraction of a second—golden-brown hair plastered to his forehead, chest heaving, eyes rimmed red.
He screamed. The sound tore out of him like he was being ripped open.
