The sun is out. Birds are loud. A neighbor’s dog barks like it’s never heard the worddeath.
Pops is gone.
The world kept breathing anyway.
Cameron sets a plate in front of me like he’s placing something fragile on a ledge. Toast. Scrambled eggs. Sliced strawberries in a neat row.
It’s too much effort for a body that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me.
“There,” he says, and his voice is careful. “Eat. Just a little.”
I blink down at the plate.
My stomach turns—not from hunger. From the idea of swallowing. From the idea of letting anything inside me when everything feels…wrong.
“I’m not hungry,” I say, and I hate how flat it sounds. Like I’m reading a line. Like I’m a version of myself that has been drained of color.
Cameron’s jaw tightens.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
He pulls out the chair across from me and sits. He doesn’t touch his own food. He just watches me like he’s waiting for me to move, to react, to be a person again.
I pick up the fork. I poke the eggs. I put the fork down.
The motion feels pointless.
Cameron exhales through his nose. Then, like he can’t stand the silence, he starts talking about nothing.
“The neighbor’s kid was out front earlier,” he says. “The little one who keeps kicking his soccer ball into our yard.”
I stare at the eggs.
“He asked if we still have a basketball,” Cameron continues. “I told him yeah. Then he asked why there were so many cars here last week.”
My throat closes.
Cameron’s eyes flick up to mine like he regrets bringing it up the second the words leave his mouth.
I swallow anyway. Hard.
“What’d you say?” My voice scrapes.
Cameron’s gaze drops to his hands. “I said…Pops was sick. And he died.”
I flinch. It’s reflexive, like my body is still trying to dodge the word.
Cameron’s jaw works. “And the kid just…nodded. Like that’s a normal thing. Then he asked if he could still borrow the basketball.”
A sound tries to come out of me—something between a laugh and a sob—but it dies in my throat.
Cameron’s mouth twitches, almost a smile. Almost.
“Kids are insane,” he mutters.
I stare at the toast.
My fingers go numb around the edge of the plate.
