If only

chapter 2

The night in boarding school, I didn’t unpack.

I just sat on the bunk and listened to girls laughing somewhere down the hall.

My hands were still shaking.

Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the memory.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him my brother the way his chest stopped moving, the way they forced the spoon into his mouth, the way the cat ran like it could smell the grave.

And the way I said “Later.”

That single word was louder than anything in the room.

My bunkmate asked where I was from. I told her.

She asked why I was quiet. I smiled.

That’s when I started lying by instinct.

Every laugh around me felt foreign. Every bed creak sounded like a monitor flatlining.

I didn’t cry. Not once.

Because if I cried, I’d have to explain.

And how do you explain the thing that haunts you is not his death it’s your voice echoing in the back of your head saying “Let me rest small first.”

So I folded the guilt like my clothes and tucked it in the back of my locker.

I even placed my toothbrush on top of it.

But it followed me.

In morning assemblies. In the silence between prep.

In every moment I found myself alone.