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“Then getting out of this car should be easy.”

I glare at her.

She reaches across the console and rests one hand over mine. “You can’t hurt him, darling. Your brother is perfect where he is. There is no shame, anger, fear, or pain in that place with him, but you have plenty of each that you need to put somewhere.”

My eyes burn.

“This is who can carry it,” she says.

Crystal releases my hand and climbs out.

I remain inside the air-conditioned car while she walks across the cemetery. Heat distorts the air beyond the windshield. Cicadas scream from the trees, and sunlight flashes against rows of polished headstones.

My mother stops several yards away from one of them.

Panic rips through me.

I reach for control automatically. I count breaths, identify five things I can see, and press my feet against the floor until my body understands I am inside a parked car instead of standing at the edge of the worst day of my childhood.

None of it lowers the fear.

I have spent months believing strength means remaining calm. My hands shaking feels like failure. The pressure closing around my lungs makes me feel as though every lesson treatment gave me disappeared the second my mother drove through the cemetery gates.

Then I see Ryan getting into that basic-ass Corolla again.

The man is a millionaire and Ryan Decker still orders Uber Economy when leaving the love of his life.

It must be a trademark.

A broken laugh escapes me, and the panic loosens enough for air to reach my lungs.

I picture his tear-streaked face through the open car door and hear the plea he could barely force out.

Fight for me.

That is why I am here.

I am also here because I never want fear deciding how I love anyone again. I want my life to belong to me even if Ryan never trusts me enough to return to it. I want to stand beside the people I love without first determining whether their pain might inconvenience someone more powerful.

I want to stop treating loss like proof that love must be controlled before it disappears.

My anxiety doesn’t leave but I open the door anyway.

Hot, muggy air wraps around me as I step onto the pavement. My heels sink into the grass on the third step. I remove them, carry them by the straps, and walk barefoot toward my mother.

Charlie’s name becomes visible before I reach the grave.

The sight strikes hard enough to stop me.

My brother’s name. His dates. A beginning and ending carved into stone while everything his death did to us continued for almost fourteen years beyond the final number.

Crystal reaches for me, but I step back.

“Go away.”

Her face changes.

“We need a minute,” I tell her. “We haven’t talked in forever.”