Something in me snaps. “No.” I shake my head. “No, that’s wrong. My mom just called. She called. See!”
I run into my room, drop to the floor, searching under the bed for my phone. My hands won’t stop shaking. I find it and dial MOM. It rings once, then goes straight to voicemail.
“She’s alive,” I whisper, holding it out like proof.
But the officer just looks at me with that same pity.“EMS did everything they could,” she says.
Everything they could.I keep hearing it. The words don’t make sense.My parents—gone? Just gone?
The air feels thin. My knees buckle before I realize I’m falling. Dean Markum’s hand lands on my shoulder, but I barely feel it.
All I can see is my mom bent over the kitchen table, with a pen in hand, writing scholarship essays with me, and my dad’s tired smile when I called to tell him about another A. They worked themselves raw so I could be here.
And I didn’t answer the call.
I told myself I’d call her back.
But later isn’t coming.
The sound erupting out of me doesn’t even feel human. I fold forward, hands over my face, and everything I am just—breaks.
I sit cross-legged on the dorm floor, the tile cold through my sweats. I don’t even remember sitting, but I’m here—staring at the wall like maybe it’ll tell me what to do. My body feels heavy, like I’m filled with wet sand.
Cami’s next to me, quiet for once. She doesn’t try to fix it. Her hand rests on my leg lightly, like she’s afraid I’ll break if she presses too hard.
This place—this school—was supposed to be our dream. Every all-nighter, every scholarship form, and every overtime shift my dad picked up was a promise that it would mean something someday. Mom’s handwriting still lives in the margins of my essays, along with her little notes telling me to breathe, to eat, and tobelieve in myself. Dad’s hands were always cracked and stained, but his tired yet proud smile shined every time I called home with good news.
I chased perfect grades like they were oxygen, working shifts and studying every day until my eyes burned, because failing them wasn’t an option.
It wasn’t just my dream. It wasours.
And now, without them, it’s just… empty.
Time doesn’t move right anymore. It stretches and folds. One second I’m numb, staring at nothing, and the next, I’m sobbing so hard my chest hurts. Cami pulls me into her arms, and I let her, but it doesn’t help. The world doesn’t stop shaking.Nothing can fix this.
“I’m so sorry, Vi,” she whispers. “You don’t have to figure this all out tonight.”
But she’s wrong.I do.Ella’s alone in a hospital somewhere, scared out of her mind. I’m all she has left. I can’t fall apart—not yet.
The university said they’ll pack and ship my things. Cami promised to hide anything that could get me in trouble—the lab gear, the drugs, anything I couldn’t afford to explain.
For all her designer heels and champagne sparkle, she’s smarter than most people realize. As a business major, she’s sharp as cut glass, already planning the empire she’ll own one day.
We were never supposed to work, her and me. Trust fund and scholarship. Manhattan and Jersey. But we did. Somehow we did.
“I’ll help however I can,” she says, even though we both know she can’t. She shouldn’t have to.
This is mine to carry. She’ll go home to New York and rule her world. I’ll go home to pick up the pieces of mine.
Saying goodbye feels like losing another limb.
Tears sting my eyes again, and the list of everything I’ve lost grows longer—my parents, my future, my best friend, and the version of my life that should’ve been.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice barely holding together. “For everything.”
Cami yanks me in and hugs me tight enough to hurt. “You’re going to be okay,” she murmurs. “You’re stronger than you think.”
I wish she were right. Right now, I don’t feel strong. I feel cracked open.
