It starts small.
A sigh. A tremor in my voice.
Then everything begins to spill.
"My dad's broke," I say, the words scraping out of me. "He trusted someone who took everything. He drinks now… just to forget."
Lena's eyes soften, but I can't stop. I don't want her pity. I want to empty everything that's been rotting inside me.
"Mom's gone. She didn't even fight for us, just packed up and left. Josh went with her because… why wouldn't he? I'm the screw-up. The quiet one. The disappointment."
My throat burns. "Grandma's the only one trying to keep things together. She still hums when she sews, but even that's starting to sound like it's breaking."
I laugh, bitter and small. "It's like I'm watching everything fall apart in slow motion, and I can't do anything to stop it."
The room goes quiet except for the sound of my breathing. Uneven, shallow.
The words came out like blood from a wound I'd been pressing down for too long.
I want to tell her everything. About Jason Marek. About the prophecy. About how I might be the reason she dies.
But the words choke me.
Instead, what comes out is:
"I destroy everything I love, Lena. I don't know how to stop it. Everything I touch falls apart."
She steps closer, slow but sure. I can smell her perfume again. Soft, clean, the same one she wore the day I first kissed her.
She reaches up, cups my face with both her hands. Her palms are warm, steady, and trembling all at once.
"Then let me fall apart with you," she whispers. "I can be happy only this way. And in your heart… you know this too."
Something in me shatters.
All the walls I built to protect her, to protect myself, collapse with one shaky breath.
The tears come before I can stop them. Hot, humiliating, unstoppable.
And she just holds me. No promises, no words. Just quiet closeness in a room that finally feels safe again.
Outside, the wind hums through the trees.
Is it the sound of fate laughing on my weakness, or the music of hope? I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.
We sit there until the night begins to fade.
The silence between us feels different now. Less sharp, less hollow.
It hums softly, like something fragile trying to heal itself.
Lena's head rests against my shoulder. Outside, the first light of dawn seeps through the window, pale and hesitant. Dust floats in it like tiny ghosts.
She speaks so quietly that I almost miss it.
"We'll get through this. Together."
Her voice trembles, but it's steady enough to make me ache.
I stare at our hands. Hers, small and warm; mine, trembling and cold.
Together they don't look broken; they just look… real.
I want to believe her. God, I want to.
That maybe love is enough to hold back the storm.
That maybe if I just keep holding on, everything will stop falling apart.
Sometimes, love isn't a choice. It's the only thing left when you've lost everything else.
Outside, the sun stretches across the rooftops, spreading purple, red and yellow on the vast canvas of the sky.
Lena smiles, faintly. Her eyes are tired but bright, like she's found a reason to hope again.
I let her stay.
She curls up beside me on the couch, and I sit awake for a long time, watching the light change across the room.
It feels like a truce; fragile, temporary, but real.
At this moment, I stopped bracing for everything to break. Let's see where it will take me from here.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
Two years slipped by like rainwater through our hands. Nothing got better. We just learned how to survive worse
Dad's business was long gone. The office emptied out one quiet morning, and the men who once called him sir stopped picking up his calls.
The debts didn't vanish with the silence, they only multiplied.
We sold our car. Then the furniture from the spare room. Then the television.
Now, Grandma's pension keeps the lights on. She still wakes up at six, makes weak tea, and hums under her breath like the world isn't crumbling.
Dad stays in his room most days, drowning in guilt and whiskey.
Sometimes he stares at the wall like it might give him answers.
And me?
I work. Café in the mornings, deliveries in the afternoons, a bookstore in the evenings. My hands are always tired, my pockets always light.
But when Lena waits outside the café, sitting on the curb with a sandwich and that stupid grin that says I'm proud of you, it almost feels worth it.
She brings me food when I forget to eat, teases me for being dramatic, and helps carry boxes heavier than her.
She became the only light I had left. Stubborn, blinding, and impossible to let go of.
Sometimes, during short breaks, I'd scribble lines of poetry on napkins.
Lena would snatch them from my hands before I could crumple them up.
"Someday," she'd say, "I'm going to publish a book of your napkin poetry and call it Caffeine & Chaos."
I'd laugh.
"At least spell my name right this time."
We'd talk about silly things like buying real coffee instead of instant, living somewhere with a balcony, a plant that wouldn't die in a week. Every small dream was an act of rebellion against the life we'd been handed.
But even then, when she'd fall asleep on my shoulder after a long shift, a quiet voice inside me whispered:
"This peace won't last. Nothing ever does."
Nate invited me for dinner one evening. I didn't want to go at first; the idea of sitting across a man who'd built a world where everything worked, where doors opened instead of closing, made me feel small. But Lena's hand in mine convinced me.
"It's just dinner," she'd said. "Dad's missed you."
So I went.
The Carter house glowed like it always did. Soft lights spilling onto the garden, laughter echoing faintly from the kitchen. It smelled of baked bread and rosemary, the kind of smell that wrapped itself around you like a memory you didn't belong to.
I sat across from Nate, trying not to look at the silverware that probably cost more than my week's pay. He was kind as always; the kind of man who listened with his whole face, who didn't interrupt even when the truth made the air feel heavy.
He asked about school, Grandma's health, Josh. I told him bits of it. Not everything. Never everything.
When he finally spoke, it was soft, careful.
"You know, Ash… if you ever need help, with tuition, or just to ease things at home, you can always come to me. You're family too, you know that."
Lena's fork paused midair. I could feel her eyes on me before I even looked up.
I smiled, because it was easier than explaining the storm underneath.