The toasted bread on my plate looked perfect. Golden. Crisp. Warm. But I could not bring myself to eat it. I picked up a slice, held it between my fingers, then let it fall back onto the plate. Even the smell of it did nothing for me. My stomach felt tight, as if grief itself had curled up inside it.
I lifted my glass and took a small sip of orange juice. The flavor tasted hollow, like water pretending to be something else. Loss could do that to a person. It could drain color from food, warmth from sunlight and strength from the bones.
Alpha Mich’s death had done exactly that to me.
It still felt unreal. As if any moment someone would walk in and say it was a mistake, that he was alive, that everything was fine. But that moment never came. And the silence that followed his death was hea
