ONE
Struck by grief.
That was the phrase I kept hearing people use.
Struck.
I didn't feel struck.
I felt consumed.
Eaten alive and thrown up with my skin still raw and bleeding.
Stuck to the floor by crushed bones.
Twitching with muscle responses that couldn't complete themselves.
Dead.
The word pounded at my skull like a wardrum.
Tears couldn't wash away the pain.
Screams couldn't convey the rift that had severed my bleeding heart.
"Marianna, you have to eat."
I didn't care who said it.
I didn't even look at the food.
"Marianna, please, he wouldn't want you to starve."
Fresh tears burned.
That was the problem, wasn't it?
He wasn't here.
He wasn't coming back.
He left me.
They took him from me.
"Mari, honey, please."
I finally looked up.
Lake didn't look much better than I felt.
Dark circles under hollow eyes that used to burn like celestial flames. Skin too pale, like he didn't ride in the sun anymore. Limbs too lean for his six-foot frame. Beard three days overgrown.
Three days.
It had only been three days.
"Marianna, please, I can't lose you too."
I stared at him.
That word—too—slid into my chest and twisted.
Too.
Like I was already halfway gone.
Like I was something slipping through fingers he couldn’t quite close fast enough.
“I’m not the one you lost."
My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded scraped. Hollowed out. Like something that had been dragged across stone until there was nothing left but noise.
Lake flinched.
Of course he did.
Because we both knew that wasn’t true.
Not really.
I might still be breathing.
But whatever part of me had belonged to him—that part was gone.
Dead didn’t have to mean a body.
“I know,” Lake said quietly.
He stepped closer, slow, like I was something feral. Like I might bolt. Or break. Or bite.
Maybe all three.
“I know,” he repeated, softer this time. “But you’re still here. And I need you to stay here.”
Need.
Another word that scraped wrong.
Everyone needed something from me now.
Eat.
Sleep.
Breathe.
Live.
Like it was that simple.
Like I hadn’t been split open and left spilling out on the floor.
“I don’t know how,” I whispered.
That was the first honest thing I’d said since it happened.
My hands curled into the fabric beneath me—blanket, couch, I didn’t even know anymore—just something to hold onto so I didn’t drift off into whatever hollow place kept calling my name.
“I don’t know how to do any of this without him.”
The room felt too big.
Too loud in its silence.
Every space he used to fill was screaming now.
Lake’s jaw tightened, like he was holding something back. Not words—those came easy. This was something heavier. Something closer to breaking.
“Then don’t,” he said.
I blinked at him.
“What?”
“Don’t know how,” he said, voice rough. “Don’t figure out forever. Don’t figure out tomorrow. Just—” He swallowed hard. “Just get through the next five minutes.”
Five minutes.
It sounded so small.
So stupid.
So impossible.
My chest hitched.
“I can’t,” I said, even though part of me wanted to try. Even though part of me was so, so tired of drowning.
Lake exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face before crouching in front of me. Close enough now that I could see the red in his eyes. The grief he was choking on for me. For him.
For all of it.
“Yes, you can,” he said, not gentle anymore. Not soft. “You don’t get to quit on me too, Marianna.”
There it was again.
Too.
It snapped something.
“I didn’t quit!” I choked, the words ripping out of me before I could stop them. “He’s gone! I didn’t choose that! I didn’t choose any of this!”
My vision blurred, hot and blinding.
“I would have gone instead,” I whispered, voice breaking completely now. “I would have taken his place. I would have—”
My breath shattered.
Because they were hollow words. Emotional shells that could never be true.
I was useful, in the way that women were useful to men who believed they owned the world, but useful kept me from getting shot.
Being dependable; that's what got men shot.
“I would have died if it meant he stayed.”
Silence crashed down between us.
Heavy.
Absolute.
Lake closed his eyes for a second, like the words hit him physically.
When he opened them again, something in him had shifted.
Not softer.
Stronger.
“You don’t get to make that trade,” he said.
My hands trembled.
“I know,” I said. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
He shook his head immediately, sharp, almost angry.
“No,” he said. “No, you don’t get to call this living and think it’s the same thing.”
His hand came up—hesitant at first—then settled over mine where it was clenched in the blanket.
Warm.
Real.
Anchoring.
“He didn’t die so you could follow him,” Lake said, voice low and steady now. “He died to keep you safe, and it’s horrible, and it’s unfair, and I hate it just as much as you do—”
His grip tightened.
“—but you’re still here. And that means something. Even if it just means you breathe through the next five minutes.”
My chest stuttered.
Five minutes.
The word echoed again, but it felt… different now.
Smaller.
Contained.
Possible.
Tears slipped down my temples into my hair.
“I don’t want to forget him,” I said, the fear slipping out quiet and raw. “If I keep going… if I eat, if I sleep… it feels like I’m leaving him behind.”
Lake’s expression broke then.
Finally.
Completely.
“You won’t,” he said, voice cracking. “God, Mari, you won’t. That’s not how this works.”
He leaned forward, forehead almost touching mine, like he was afraid if he didn’t stay close I’d disappear.
“You carry him,” he whispered. “That’s the deal. That’s the price. You carry him in everything you do from here on out.”
Carry him.
Not lose him.
Not replace him.
Carry him.
My grip on the blanket loosened—just a little.
Air dragged into my lungs, shaky and uneven, but deeper than before.
“I don’t think I can stand up,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to,” Lake said immediately.
“I don’t think I can eat.”
“That’s fine.”
My fingers twitched under his hand.
“…but maybe I can sit up.”
Something like relief flickered across his face—quick, fragile, like it might shatter if he moved too fast.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay, we can do that.”
We.
Not me.
We.
Lake didn’t let go of my hand as I shifted, every movement slow, like my body didn’t quite remember how to belong to me anymore.
The world tilted.
My stomach churned.
But I didn’t fall.
Five minutes.
Just five.
I slumped against Lake's side as he brought me up, but I didn't fall. And for the first time since everything broke—I didn’t feel like I was already gone.
"You gon' let me hold you, yet?"
The laughter came out as hoarse as my cries, but it was the first thing that didn't feel like pain.
"You move in fast, lover-boy."
It was the first thing I said in days that actually sounded like me.
Lake managed a smile. "You keep loving men I call my brothers, Mari," his hand was warm when it cupped my cheek. "You need the comfort. He'd do the same for my girl, if it had been me."
Honest.
Crude.
Too telling of the life we all lived; where men had plans for their girlfriends in the event they got murdered.
"I'm not an obligation."
He moved me closer. I let him. His touch was warm. A living blanket that knew how to touch me.
"No," he brought my head down onto his chest. His heartbeat was steady. Soothing. Familiar. "But I told you I loved you when I was thirteen." A confession under bleachers over stolen cigarettes we were never supposed to have. "And that didn't change when you chose him."
I didn't pull away.
Couldn't.
My body wouldn't let me.
My mind screamed in vivid memories of the three of us. Together. Wild. Tangled in each other beyond words.
Lake wasn't his brother by blood. He was his brother by rite. By too many choices that bled for him. By promises he always kept.
"His funeral is tomorrow."
"I don't want to go."
His hands caressed muscles that tensed in animal reflex.
"Don't think about tomorrow," he kissed the top of my head. "Just keep breathing, for me."
I did.
God, I tried.
Each breath felt borrowed. Like it didn’t belong in my lungs anymore. Like it had his name written on it and I was stealing it every time I inhaled.
Lake didn’t rush me.
Didn’t tell me to sit up straighter or breathe deeper or be stronger.
He just… stayed.
One hand slow on my arm, grounding. The other resting over mine like he was keeping it from slipping away.
“I don’t know what to do with my hands,” I murmured after a while.
It sounded stupid the second it left my mouth.
But it was true.
“They keep looking for him.”
Lake’s chest rose under my cheek, steady, steady, steady.
“Then let ’em stop looking,” he said quietly. “Just for right now.”
My fingers curled into his shirt instead. The fabric twisted tight in my grip like it was the only thing keeping me anchored to the world.
“I keep thinking I hear him,” I admitted. “Footsteps. Doors. His voice—” My throat closed. “I turn around and there’s nothing there.”
Lake’s hand stilled for half a second before it resumed that slow, careful motion.
“Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “That part doesn’t go away quick.”
Something in me cracked again at that.
Not sharp this time.
Not shattering.
Just… splitting wider.
“I hate that,” I whispered. “I hate that I’m gonna forget the sound of him for real one day, but right now my brain won’t even let him be gone properly.”
Lake let out a quiet breath.
“You won’t forget,” he said. “It just… changes shape.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
No lies.
No softening it.
Just truth sitting heavy between us.
My head shifted slightly against him, enough to hear his heartbeat clearer.
It didn’t match his.
Nothing ever would.
But it was something.
Alive.
Here.
“I feel guilty,” I said after a long stretch of silence. “For this.”
His fingers paused. “For what?”
“For not screaming right now,” I said. “For sitting here. For—” I swallowed hard. “For laughing a second ago.”
Lake exhaled slowly, like he’d been expecting that one.
“Mari…”
“I shouldn’t get to do that,” I rushed out. “He doesn’t get to do anything anymore and I’m just—sitting here, making jokes, breathing, existing—”
My voice cracked again.
“It feels wrong.”
Lake shifted just enough to look down at me.
I didn’t lift my head, but I felt it. The weight of his gaze. The way he was choosing his words like they mattered.
“They took enough from you,” he said finally. “Don’t hand over the rest.”
I went still.
“Grief’s gonna take what it takes,” he continued, quieter now. “It’s greedy like that. But if you start thinking you don’t deserve one second of relief—” His thumb brushed against my knuckles, grounding again. “—then it’s gonna take everything.”
The words settled somewhere deep.
Somewhere raw.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” I said.
“You don’t,” he answered. “You just… don’t give it anything more.”
A shaky breath slipped out of me.
“That sounds like something he would say.”
Lake huffed softly. “Yeah. That idiot had a way of sounding smart without trying.”
A weak, broken laugh slipped out of me again.
It hurt.
But it didn’t destroy me this time.
Progress.
Tiny.
Fragile.
Real.
“I keep thinking about tomorrow,” I confessed. “The casket. Seeing him like that. Everyone looking at me like I’m supposed to…” I trailed off, shaking my head against his chest. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”
Lake’s arm tightened around my shoulders, firm but not trapping.
“You don’t gotta be anything,” he said. “You show up, you leave, or you don’t go at all. Ain’t a single rule that matters more than you breathing.”
“They’ll expect—”
“Let ’em,” he cut in, not harsh—just certain. “They didn’t lose him the way you did.”
Silence again.
But softer now.
Less suffocating.
“I’m scared,” I admitted, barely audible.
Lake didn’t hesitate this time.
“I know.”
His hand slid up to cradle the back of my head, holding me there—not forcing, just… steady.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured.
Not instead.
Not replacement.
Just—there.
And somehow, that mattered.
My breathing hitched again, but it didn’t spiral.
Not this time.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” I said.
The words felt heavier than anything else I’d said so far.
Because they meant something.
Because they were a choice.
Lake didn’t move.
Didn’t rush to answer.
Just stayed exactly where he was, like he understood the weight of it.
“I'm here,” he said quietly.
Simple.
Certain.
No conditions.
My grip on his shirt loosened—just a little.
Not letting go.
Just…
Not holding on like I was drowning anymore.
Five minutes.
Then another.
And another.
And somewhere in between the ache and the quiet and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat—I didn’t feel whole. I didn’t feel okay.
But I felt held. And for right now—that was enough.
