His big hands, hands that had held her shoulders, brushed her cheek, touched her wrist when he’d finally told her the truth, came up to his face and failed him. His breath hitched. His knees buckled. The first sob ripped out of him so violently he choked on it.
He pressed both palms hard over his eyes, as if he could hold himself together that way.
Nothing held.
He’d seen it. The moment she understood. The way her eyes softened, opened, lit. Like sunrise breaking across the prairie after a long winter.
She had loved him.
He’d felt it in the warm curve of her smile. In the soft brush of her hand when she walked away from him after lab. In the jasmine scent that clung to her hair when she leaned in close during study sessions.
He latched onto those memories now, desperate.
The way she brought him coffee exactly how he liked it before he even realized she’d memorized it.
The way she helped him with a physics problem he already knew how to solve, but pretended not to, just to sit beside her, to hear her voice, to breathe her in.
The way she said his name, quiet and gentle, like she already carried it against her heart.
He’d lost her before he ever had the chance to fully know her. Before he ever got to take her on a real date. Before he ever told her how deeply she’d rooted herself inside him.
A broken sound tore out of him as he bent forward, one hand braced on the bunk, the other clamped over his chest because it hurt. God, it hurt.
He wanted her back. Her laughter. Her awkward brilliance. Her jasmine hair.
He wanted the chance he’d been robbed of by arrogance, ego, and a decision that never should have been made.
A soft creak broke through his grief. He didn’t hear footsteps. Didn’t sense movement. But suddenly someone was there.
“Little brother.” The voice was low. Steady. Warm as earth. Deep as home. Than lifted his head, and Bear stood in the doorway of his tiny Bancroft room. “Little one,” Bear murmured, the words layered with more than English. Layered with family, memory, blood, the Rez, the past that shaped them both.
Than didn’t hesitate.
He threw himself into Bear’s arms, collapsing into the solid strength of his brother’s chest. His sobbing came harder now, raw and shaking, everything he’d held back crashing out of him in waves. He clutched Bear like a child, fingers gripping the fabric of his brother’s shirt as if holding on could bring Mei back.
“I want her back,” he choked out. Then, brokenly, in Lakota, “Mníšoše ki? wówašte. T?a?í?ya? wanú?kiciyapi. Wówašte.”
Bear wrapped both arms around him, rocking him gently, grounding him with every slow breath, every steady heartbeat.
“I know, little one,” Bear whispered. “I know.”
Bear didn’t tell him to be strong. He didn’t tell him it would get better. He didn’t offer platitudes. He just held him. Held him through every tear. Every shudder. Every broken whisper of the girl who smelled like jasmine and smiled like sunrise.
Than sagged against him, empty and wrecked, but carried by the one presence solid enough to bear the weight of his grief.
He would never be the same after this. Not ever.
But the place she left behind, he would guard it. Honor it. Keep it alive in the only place the ocean, the storm, and the world couldn’t take her from.
His heart.
Dinner passed in a blur of plates and voices that didn’t quite reach Than. The food barely registered. He chewed because it was expected, swallowed because his body needed it, but there was no appetite in it. Just motion.
His mother’s hand came to rest on his forearm.
The touch was gentle. Familiar. Weighted with years of knowing exactly how much pressure to use.
“Why don’t you come home after graduation?” she asked softly. “Rest a while, and postpone BUD/S.”
