Page 70 of Until Forever Falls

I look around, hoping to see a familiar face. Not for comfort, exactly, but just to feel a little less lost. Brooks isn’t here. I haven’t seen him once since that day, and the emptiness he leaves behind feels like one more thing I can’t put back together.

I’ve tried. I’ve called. I’ve texted. I’ve pleaded with the fucking universe for some kind of answer, foranything—just a fucking reason why. But I get nothing. Every time, I’m met with silence. Not a goddamn word. I don’t know if my mom has somehow kept him away, or if he’s just chosen this—chosen to abandon me. But it doesn’t matter.Today, nothing matters.

The pastor speaks about faith and glory and trusting God’s plan, but the words don’t register. My ears buzz with static. This isn’t how today was supposed to go. It’s our birthday. We were supposed to celebrate, to spend the day together laughing and planning our futures. Beckett would’ve made a joke about how we should get matching tattoos, and I would’ve pretended to hate the idea but secretly thought about saying yes. That’s how it should’ve been.

Instead, I’m standing here, alone, tethered to this desolate place because Beckett’s body is in that box, and I can’t leave him. Not today. Not ever.

My mom is next to me, gripping my arm so tight it almost hurts. Her face is unreadable, her lips pressed into a line like she’s trying to hold everything together through sheer willpower. I can feel her blame in the way she holds on to me. She doesn’t have to say it. I already know.

Greg stands rigid on her other side, like he’s bracing for the detonation. It hasn’t hit yet, but it will. I can feel the charge in the air, the warning buzz in my body. And when she finally looks at me, it’s sharper, like she’s already carved me out of her world. The worst part? I don’t fucking blame her.

I’ve heard the stories. I know how it happened. Beckett was pissed off, drowning in enough booze to make stupid choices feel like good ones. If I had been there, he wouldn’t have set foot in that fucking car. Wouldn’t have left to stay over at Colt’s house. We would have talked, probably fought, and then I would’ve dragged his ass home. That was my job. That was my fucking job. And I wasn’t there to do it.

No. I was with Brooks, letting myself sink into the easy way out. Avoiding. Now, Beckett’s gone, and the thought won’t leave me—the sick, gnawing certainty that it’s my fault. I let this happen. I should have gone to that bonfire. I should’ve done something, anything. But I didn’t. And now he’s dead.

As the pastor finishes and the crowd starts to thin, my mom lets go of my arm but I stay rooted to the ground. My body won’t move. Leaving means accepting this, and I can’t. Iwon’t. He’s here, six feet under, and I can’t abandon him again.

I glare at the casket in the ground, like I can change this fucked up reality just by refusing it. We were supposed to grow old, supposed to have years, decades. Now he’s nothing but a box in the ground, and I never fucking told him I loved him. He needs to know I loved him.

The wind kicks up, rattling the branches above, and for a second, I swear I hear his voice in the rustling leaves. But then it slips away, drawn into the rift between one reality and the next. My fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms. I hold my breath, until the sound of footsteps crunching against the gravel shatters what’s left of the moment.

“Are you done making this all about you?”

I turn, my pulse spiking. My mom stands there, arms cinched across her chest, knuckles white, like she’s one breath away from breaking.

“What?”

“Are you done?” she snaps, her voice cracking like a whip, louder this time. “We just buried your brother,my son, and you’re standing here like the goddamn center of the universe, like your grief is the only thing that fucking matters.” She shakes her head, eyes wild, wet, furious. “You don’t get to play the fucking victim today, Dylan.Not here.”

I’m too numb to feel the sting of her words. The guilt is already eating me alive, tearing chunks out of me since the second I found out. She doesn’t need to say it—I already fucking know.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? You don’t get to be sorry. You’ve never cared about anyone but yourself, and now Beckett’s dead because of it.” Her voice chokes on his name, but her gaze remains unwavering. She just glares at me like I’m something vile, something she wouldn’t scrape off her shoe.

I don’t fight back. I just stand there. There’s no point in arguing. She’s not wrong.

Fingers clamp down on my shoulder with enough pressure to cut through the numbness. When I turn, Emily Holland is there. She doesn’t look at me, just past me, locking eyes with my mom like she’s about to drive a stake straight through her heart.

“That’s enough, Denise,” she interrupts, her voice calm but carrying the weight of a sledgehammer.

My mom’s face hardens immediately. “Enough?” she spits. “You don’t know what I’m feeling. You have no fucking idea what it’s like to bury your own child.”

Emily doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t so much as blink. But I swear, the air between them could ignite. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t understand. And don’t you dare use your grief like a weapon to rip Dylan apart. You want to scream, break shit, burn the whole world down? Fine. But not here. Not like this. As a mother, you should know better.”

I swear my mother is about to detonate—veins tight, chest heaving like she’s barely keeping the rage from splitting her in half. Her jaw locks, teeth grinding so hard I swear I hear it. Then, without another word, she spins on her heel and stalks off.

Emily’s breath quivers as she lets it out, her chin tilting up as if she’s searching for the right thing to say. But it doesn’t matter. I know that look—the one that says,you fragile, broken thing.It causes every nerve in my body to flare.

Her arms spread wide, like she already knows I won’t resist. “Come here, sweetheart.” I try—to resist, to stand on my own. But it’s useless. The second I step into her embrace, I realize how desperately I needed someone to hold me.

“Your mom is lashing out because she’s grieving,” she explains gently. “But that doesn’t mean she’s right.You didn’t cause this.”

She’s wrong.

I did.

Not with my hands, but with my absence. With my choices. Beckett died because I wasn’t there.

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