The guilt.
The weight of fifteen fucking years pressing down on her, twisting everything, making her believe, actually believe, that I’ve been trying to destroy her because of something she had no control over.
She’s been holding onto this guilt this whole time and it wrecks me.
The grief, the guilt, the weight of the us that was ripped apart that night, she never let it go.
Just like I never fucking did.
“Lila,” my voice is hoarse, raw, but she shakes her head.
“No.” She blinks, a tear slipping free, but she doesn’t let it fall. She won’t let herself. “You don’t get to stand here and tellme I’m wrong. You don’t get to tell me you don’t hate me.”
My chest caves.
“I don’t.” I step forward, voice thick. “I never did. I never could.”
She laughs, wrecked and breathless, shaking her head, refusing to believe it. “Then why are you doing this?” Her voice cracks. “Why are you taking this place from me?”
I can’t breathe.
She’s staring at me, demanding answers I don’t fucking have.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Because I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know where to fucking start.
My chest tightens, pulse pounding in my ears, heat rising fast and sharp up my throat.
Why?
Because I wasn’t there.
Because I missed my mother’s last breath while Lila, Lila was looking at me like I was her whole goddamn world.
Because I turned off my phone. Because I thought I had time. Because I was seventeen and arrogant and didn’t know what loss looked like until I walked through that door and found out I was too fucking late.
She was gone.
My father, useless, drunk, hollow, looked at me like it wasmyfault. Like I was supposed to fix everything.
When I couldn’t? He stopped trying. Not all at once, but in pieces, quiet, steady decay. He let the house rot. Let the bills pile up. Let the debt swallow us whole.
I tried. Itried, Lila.
I worked. Any job I could find. I held it all together until it allslipped through my fingers anyway.
The house. Gone.
The life I thought we had. Gone.
I was just a kid, standing in the ruins, with nothing left to give.
No home. No future. No plan.
Lila?
She was everything I couldn’t keep.
