Grief is a bitch like that. Taking all that was once good, it cuts through like a knife—leaving a scar that is vile and ugly and permanent. Leaving memories that were once pure and light, forever stained by the bitter taste of loss.

I don’t know if I can say that I know heartbreak like Mason—not when I only have doubts and hunches and star-bursts of memories to go on—but I do know guilt. I do know denial. Anger. The curse of remembering.

I know what it’s like to live in the aftermath, when the veil of mourning has lifted, and the world around you seems to rush forward. Brighter and louder than ever, while you’re still trapped in the shadow of what you lost.

That defining moment where life, as you knew it, shattered. Severing your life into a Before and After.

It’s hard not to look at everyone around you and not see the person you once were looking back at you. Like a fly trapped behind glass. Never to be reached, never to be forgotten.

They’ll keep waiting for you to snap out of it—the ones who knew you in the Before. They’ll glance back every so often as they continue to move forward, always forward. Tugging uselessly on the remains of who you once were.

They try to get it. Try to be patient and understanding.

But they weren’t there.

They’re not the ones who had their world split apart.

They’re not the ones who found their boyfriend swinging from a belt.

But Mason...

I see the After in his eyes.

I see the fissure that tore his life in half.

He gets it. He gets me. Just as I get his pain, or at least the bare bones of it.

It’s a powerful thing—grief. Death. It can rip two people apart who were once impenetrable, yet bring together two practical strangers. My parents didn’t understand. My friends didn’t understand. But Mason does.

A door suddenly slams, and I snap my head toward the hidden stairwell.

But no one comes down.

Mason mutters something under his breath. He sighs. “Ivy.”

“What?” But then I realize...

We never heard a door shut when she went up to what I assume is the apartment Mason mentioned. The one he apparently lives in with Waylon.

“She heard all that, huh?” I try to remember what all was said. If there was anything incriminating.

Mason runs a hand through his hair. “And she wanted us to know she did.” He huffs out a short laugh. “Welcome to my life, man.”

“She seems like a handful.”

“You’ve no idea.” He pauses. “That girl’s vicious when she wants to be.”

“No shit,” I say seriously.

He smiles faintly. “She’s a good person, though, under all that...”

“Spite?”