Cars still pass on the street like they don’t know a grave got filled in last week. The sun still comes up like it isn’t disrespectful. My neighbors still take out their trash on the same day, still water their lawns, still laugh too loud in their driveways.
And I keep doing it too.
I keep moving.
Because there’s no other option.
The air outside is mild—California pretending it’s summer, even though it’s not quite there yet. The kind of weather Pops would’ve called perfect walking weather with that proud little smile, like he personally ordered it.
The thought hits low and sharp.
I inhale through my nose, slow. Controlled.
I’ve gotten good at that.
I walk down the sidewalk with my hands shoved into the pockets of Logan’s hoodie—the one I stole and never gave backbecause it smells like him, and it makes my chest hurt less when the house feels too empty. My sneakers scuff against the concrete, the rhythm steady enough to drown out my brain if I try hard enough.
Nine days.
It feels like nine minutes and nine years at the same time.
The first few days after the funeral were a blur of…noise. People. Food I didn’t eat. Voices I didn’t hear. Hands on my shoulder. Words likesorryandhe’s at peaceandlet me know if you need anything—phrases that floated around me like someone else’s language.
I remember standing in the living room while everyone slowly trickled out, watching the last casserole dish disappear into a car trunk, and thinking—so this is it.
This is the part where the world leaves.
This is the part where you’re supposed to figure out how to live in a house that still smells like him.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t collapse. I didn’t do any of the things I thought grief would make me do.
I just…went quiet.
Like my body decided the only way to survive was to shut everything down to the minimum settings.
Even now, I don’t cry all day anymore.
That’s new.
At first, crying happened like breathing—no warning, no control. In the kitchen. In the hallway. In the middle of brushing my teeth. I would start, and I couldn’t stop, and it felt like my ribs were going to crack open from the force of it.
Now?
Now I only do it in the shower or when Logan is holding me on nights that I can’t keep the nightmares from feeling too much like reality.
I don’t know if that’s progress or just a different kind of broken, but I’ve taken the crying and stuffed it into one small, contained space. Steam, water, soap. A place where the sound of it can disappear, and no one has to see me come undone.
It’s almost…efficient.
Like everything else I do when I’m trying not to fall apart.
I take another step, then another, and I focus on the small things my brain can handle.
The way the sun warms the top of my cheeks.
The way a bird hops along the grass, fearless and stupid.
The way my chest rises and falls without me having to tell it to.
