All I see is Sophia.
She starts to break slowly.
And then all at once.
When they lower the coffin, something in her gives way completely. The sound she makes is quiet, barely audible from where I am in the car, but it tears straight through me like nothing else has.
Her knees buckle.
Tate catches her before she falls, pulling her against his chest as she shakes, one hand at the back of her head, holding her together.
Something in my chest cracks wide open.
Ican’tdo this.
My hand finds the door handle.
Already moving.
“Don’t.” Sam’s voice cuts through everything.
I freeze.
“You walk out there…” he says, quieter now, “… this is over. For you. For Riley. For all of it.”
Riley.
That name anchors me when nothing else can.
She’s still out there.
Alone inside that operation.
Counting on someone to come.
If I break now, I lose everything.
My hand drops.
Heavy.
Final.
“Drive.”
The car pulls away slowly, and I don’t look away. I can’t. Not while she’s still standing there, my mother is breaking, and my brother stands in my place, holding the woman I love together.
I hold onto that last glimpse until the cemetery disappears from view.
Only then do I lean back, drag both hands over my face, and press hard like I can push back whatever is trying to break through.
“She thinks I’m gone.”
“She has to,” Sam says.
I nod.
I chose this.
