“I know,” she whispered, arms tightening around me. “I know.”
While she stayed with me, the guys took over the house. Windows thrown open. Sheets stripped. Trash cleared. Fresh air forced inside like an intervention. Sunlight cut into the bedroom later, harsh and unfamiliar, like something sharp.
They tried to feed me afterward. Toast. Soup. Electrolytes. My body rejected all of it. I threw up violently, folding in on myself, acid burning my throat, tears streaming uncontrollably—not from emotion alone, but from the sheer physical stress of it.
Mia held my hair back, hands shaking. “This isn’t just sadness,” she said quietly, voice tight with fear. “This is… this is really bad.”
She crouched in front of me, elbows on her knees, eyes level with mine like she wasn’t afraid of what she might see there.
“We’ll be back,” she said, firm enough that it wasn’t a question. “Tomorrow. And the day after if we have to. You don’t get rid of us that easy.”
I didn’t trust my voice, so I nodded.
Drax clapped a hand on the doorframe like he was anchoring something. Dix gave me a crooked smile that didn’t try to pretend everything was fine. Jet squeezed my shoulder—once, quick, grounding—before they finally filed out.
When the door closed behind them, the house turned hostile again.
Too quiet. Too big.
I dragged myself back into bed and pulled the covers over my head like they could shield me from the weight pressing down. My heart thudded unevenly. My hands shook until I trapped them beneath my thighs just to make it stop.
As soon as the door closed behind them, the darkness rushed back in. Faster this time. Hungrier.
And it didn’t matter that someone had seen me drown—it still closed over my head, and pulled me under.
The days shortened.The cold crept in through the seams of the house, settling into my bones. I noticed it only because my joints ached more than usual, because the bed felt colder when I shifted at night, because my hands shook even when I wasn’t crying.
They didn’t let me disappear completely.
Someone knocked every day. Sometimes it was Mia. Sometimes the guys. Sometimes all of them, loud and mismatched and stubborn, bringing soup I didn’t eat and blankets I pretended not to need. They opened curtains without asking. Sat on the floor when I wouldn’t make it to the couch. Talked around me when talkingtome felt like too much.
Christmas lights started appearing in other people’s windows.
I saw them once when Mia forced me outside for air—tiny, defiant points of color strung against the dark. They hurt to look at. Proof the world was still insisting on joy without my consent. I turned my face away and went back inside before she could say anything.
She didn’t argue. She just followed me in and shut the door gently behind us, like she understood that sometimes surviving meant choosing the warmest place and staying there until your body remembered how.
On Christmas morning, my phone buzzed. Just once. I stared at it for a long time before picking it up, fingers stiff, pulse ticking too loud in my ears.
DAD
Season’s greetings. Wishing you peace and prosperity in the year ahead.
That was it.
No name. No question. No acknowledgment of absence or silence or the fact that I had nearly died and he hadn’t noticed. A message copied and pasted, sent down a list without pause.
I imagined him standing somewhere warm, efficient. Sending it between meetings. Not thinking about me at all.
The realization didn’t hurt the way it used to. I set the phone face down and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The day passed without shape. Without food. Without sound. Christmas dissolved into just another square on the calendar I didn’t interact with.
The world kept moving.
I didn’t.
By the timeNew Year’s Eve arrived, I had been empty for so long it felt like my natural state.
The house didn’t feel abandoned anymore. It felt neutral. Like it had accepted I wasn’t living in it so much as occupying space that hadn’t yet noticed I was fading. The air was cold enough to sting when I inhaled, but I didn’t bother turning the heat up. I stayed wrapped in an old hoodie, knees drawn to my chest on the couch, staring at nothing.
