But the second I shift, the weight crushing my chest lifts just enough to move somewhere else.
My mouth. My neck. Blocking air. Cutting it off completely.
I. Can’t. Breathe.
More pain tears through me, ripping across my body in tortured waves.
My vision darkens at the edges.
My body trembles. And slowly, quietly?—
I give up.
I squeeze my eyes shut and let myself drift somewhere else.
I’m five years old again.
Bare feet pounding across warm grass, as I run beneath the wide arms of the old maple tree. Its leaves curl softly inward, whispering against one another as the wind stirs them. A Blue Jay flies from the branches above me, a flash of bright wings against the sky, and I tilt my face upward, watching it disappear into the sun.
Grandad is here.
“Come on, sweet pea,” he calls gently, his voice warm and steady. “Time to head inside. There’s a storm coming.”
He scoops me up. Wind whips around us, carrying a swirl of white dogwood petals that dance through the air like tiny snowflakes as he carries me toward the house.
I bury my face against his shoulder, inhaling his comforting scent.
I’m not scared.
I’m okay.
Grandad is here.
I’m safe.
He always protects me.
CHAPTER 36
collins
NOW
I’m hearing her words.
I’m looking at the woman I’ve known.
I’m staring into her eyes—red, swollen, and filled with a sadness so deep it feels bottomless—and that’s when I realize…
I hear nothing. I see nothing. I know nothing.
Everything I thought I understood, every explanation I’d built in my mind, every scenario that ever crossed it…
Nothing.
Not one single thing could have prepared me for this. Any pain I’ve ever felt, any anger that has ever run through my veins. All logic, all reason, it evaporates. Dissolves into nothingness.
“Say something,” she whispers, looking at me through eyes that reflect more suffering than one person should ever have to carry.
