“Spare key to his loft,” Dominic says simply, nodding at the stairs. “Go.”
I linger at the top of the stairwell, heart drumming like a frantic hummingbird in my chest. But my hesitation is quickly overtaken by something stronger. I take the key, the metal cool and solid in my trembling fingers, and slide it into the lock and turn. The door gives easily, swinging open without resistance.
The moment I step inside, it hits me.
Grief.
It’s not the kind I’ve spent centuries managing, the kind that passes through me, brief and fleeting, a transaction of sorrow before I move on. No, this is different. It’s thick and suffocating, sticking to my skin like the heavy heat before a storm breaks. An ache so deep and ancient it feels carved from stone.
I exhale, forcing my feet forward, letting my senses adjust.
Levi’s apartment feels hollow. Like the air has been sucked out, like the grief has swallowed the space whole.
He’s curled in bed, swallowed by blankets. A shadow of himself, dimmed in a way that makes my chest pull tight. I move cautiously, every step weighted with the fear I might break something already fragile. He doesn’t flinch when I lower myself onto the edge of the mattress.
“Levi,” I say softly.
Nothing.
I reach out and thread my fingers into his hair. He shifts, eyes cracking open, red rimmed, unfocused.
And fuck.
I’ve seen grief before. Obviously. I’ve stood in rooms packed with mourners, held hands with the devastated, whispered words of comfort. I’ve watched the way sorrow can shape a person, dull their edges, hollow them out.
But I have never…never…felt it like this.
Because Levi’s grief isn’t just present. It’s consuming him. Unresolved. Unbridled. Unforgiving.
“Talk to me,” I whisper, though part of me already knows he can’t.
“I…” Levi swallows, eyes glassy and distant. “I think…if I open that door today, I’m afraid it won’t shut again.”
That cracks something in me. So, I don’t ask him to. I stand in the figurative doorway with him instead. Because Levi is neverstill. Always moving. Always filling every room with light so fiercely you forget light can burn out.
And now?
Now, he’s silent. I shift closer, my hand resting over his wrist. His skin is warm but clammy. His fingers curled into the blanket like he’s holding on for dear life.
“You don’t need to talk,” I whisper gently, tracing circles over his wrist. “Just let me shoulder a piece of it. Even for a minute.”
Levi closes his eyes, shifting toward my touch, a silent admission that my presence, at least, isn’t unwanted. “Today’s the anniversary of my brother’s death.” Of course the silence had a date.
The words land between us, soft and weighted with years of unspoken sorrow. I knew Levi was carrying something back at that café. And suddenly I see it: The brightness, the banter, the endless warmth…it’s all been laced through with grief. Every joke, every forced smile, every sunny greeting, carried its shadow. It was always there, hiding in plain sight.
I hadn’t looked closely enough at the time. Not when I was too buried in my own noise. My rules, my loophole…being seen by him.
And maybe that’s why I felt pulled to him from the start. Not because I recognized it, but because grief has always found its way to me.
My grip on his wrist tightens. “I didn’t know.”
He nods, a short, jerky movement. “I never know how to talk about it, so I just…I don’t.”
And he doesn’t have to.
I feel it.
The kind of heartache that exists in the marrow of his bones and the way he holds himself.
