Dad was his hero, his compass, and losing him at seventeen is a wound Ollie won't talk about, maybe because he thinks it'll break me to see him break.

But I can handle it.

I can handle anything but this suffocating silence between us.

He's been carrying more weight than any teenager should. His broad shoulders, usually relaxed and confident, now bear the invisible burden of being the "man of the house"—a phrase I heard some well-meaning relative whisper earlier, making me want to scream.

Beside him stands Jake Sullivan. He and Ollie grew up like brothers, thick as thieves, always giving me grief for not being fast or strong enough to keep up with them.

Jake's head snaps up from his hushed conversation with Ollie, and our eyes meet across the room. He smiles, soft and boyish, his sapphire-blue eyes and sun-kissed chestnut hair catching the afternoon light in a way that shouldn't feel possible right now. For a moment, I see the ten-year-old boy who used to chase fireflies with me in the Sullivan's backyard.

But that was before.

Before everything changed.

I want to smile back, to give him some sign that I'm still me, still here. But the ache in my chest has become a permanent resident. It's been there for over a week, like a thorn lodged deep, impossible to ignore. Smiling only seems to make it worse. This morning at the cemetery plays on a loop in my mind, the raw pain tightening its grip around my heart.

"David Wells wasn't just a father or husband; he was a beacon of light," Lydia had said at the funeral, her voice steady but threaded with grief. Her words echo in my mind, cutting through the fog of numbness I've been hiding behind.

It's impossible to accept how quickly life can flip, how one moment you're arguing about curfew, and the next, the person you thought would always be there to argue with is just... gone.

No warning. No goodbye.

Just emptiness where his laughter used to be.

A sharp pang shoots through me, and suddenly, the room feels like it's closing in, the walls pulsing with each heartbeat.

Breathe, Nora.

Just breathe.

My heart races, a runaway train threatening to jump its tracks. It's the same every time the tears threaten to come—this wild panic, this desperate need to escape.

Get out. Now.

Run. Hide.

Jake's face flickers with concern, his eyes following me as I move. There's history in that look, years of shared summers and secret hideouts, of understanding without words. But I can't bear his kindness right now. I can't bear anyone's. I turn toward the hallway, away from the suffocating crowd and their endless condolences.

And those goddamn clinking teacups that won't stop their mournful symphony.

This isn't a nightmare. It's worse than that.

One I can't run from.