SILAS' POV
There were times when I forgot her. Years had passed, and somewhere along the way, the weight of her absence had dulled. Maybe that was the cruelest part of it all—that I had moved on, even if just for moments, as if she had never existed.
But then Chris came back. And with him, the past.
Now, every second I had spent forgetting her crashed down on me, layer upon layer, until it crushed my chest and squeezed the air from my lungs. Ava had died because of me. She had lost everything, and yet, here I was—breathing, living, existing. How was that fair? How was that anything but a sick joke?
The ground felt unstable beneath my feet, like the earth itself rejected my presence here. The tall poplar trees lining the cemetery swayed in the wind, their shadows stretching long and thi
