Page 78 of Until Forever Falls

There. It’s real now. The truth, and with it, a slow, aching rip, fiber by fiber. The tears come, slow and unchecked. They’re not from sadness exactly, but from the sheer meaning of it all—the shift, the rupture, the way I suddenly don’t know what to do with my heart.

“She’s beautiful. You’d love her. Those bright blue eyes, that wild curl to her hair—she looks exactly like us.Like you. And for a second, it stole the air from my lungs. I wanted to tell her. I should’ve told her who I am. But I looked at her and saw everything I’d lost—I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. It felt wrong, like I’m trying to build something new with missing parts, like there’s a piece of this that only you were meant to hold.”

I pause, teeth sinking into the edge of my thumbnail until the sting cuts through the noise in my head—not enough to stop me, just enough to remind me I’m still here.

“And, uh…Mom’s sober now.” The words feel like they belong to someone else’s life. I roll them around in my mouth, waiting for them to settle, but they don’t. “It doesn’t feel real. I don’t know how to handle it, or if I even want to.”

The damn breaks. Words tumble out faster now, like I’ve lost control of the floor. “I just—God, Becks, I miss you. I want to stop dragging all this shit around with me, but I don’t know where to start. I’m scared. What happens when I finally move on? I’m scared that if I do…I’ll start losing pieces of you, too.”

The voicemail beeps, cutting me off and erasing the words I didn’t have time to finish—just like it always does.

I sit there, stranded on the edge of this stiff hotel bed, fingers locked around my phone like it’s some kind of lifeline. And if I hold on tight enough, I might pull him back through the static. Might hear his voice one more time, telling me what to do, how to make sense of all this. But the line is dead. And so is he. Waiting won’t change a damn thing.

My breath rattles out, and my eyes drift to the nightstand. Three letters, stacked too neatly, were somehow placed there. Staring at me like they know I’ve run out of places to hide.

Reality tilts as I stare at them. I blink, half expecting the envelopes to vanish, like some cruel trick of the light. But they’re still here, waiting. Then, it hits me—our letters from high school. The ones we wrote to our future selves, a lifetime ago. I’d forgotten they even existed.

My breath catches as I reach for them, fingers ghosting over the old ink and paper. My own scrawled mess of a signature. My brother’s rushed, uneven print. And the last one—deliberate. My name etched onto the envelope in handwriting I’d know anywhere.

Brooks.

He must have put them in here. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

I swear I can hear Mr. Lyons’ voice in my head.Seniors, take this time to write to your future self. When your reunion comes, see if you recognize the person you’ve become.It felt stupid back then. A waste of time. But now, I have the proof of who we were, pressed tightly between my fingers.

I don’t stop to question it—curiosity sinks its claws in, dragging my hands to the paper’s edge. The seal breaks. Instinct takes the reins..

And then, everything changes.

28

Brooks

Then

“There must be some mistake.” Fear distorts my mom’s voice, strangled by panic as she and my dad tear into each other in the hallway. “He’s young. He’s a healthy kid,” she insists, her desperation bleeding into every word. “We can get a third opinion. A fourth, a fifth! Whatever it takes!”

She doesn’t realize the doctor and I can hear everything—the crack in her voice, the way she claws at denial like she can rip it open to find a different answer inside. My dad’s voice is lower now, smothered, like he’s trying to force the world back into something manageable. I can’t catch the words, but they steady something in her—just barely. When they return, they move like paper dolls caught in a slow motion collapse, one breath away from breaking.

I can tell they’re trying to hide it, but I know them too well. The way they move, the way they avoid looking directly at each other, it’s all too obvious. They’re not okay, and neither am I. A crushing pressure coils around my ribs, the cruel paradox of wanting to be unshakeable yet yearning to be someone else’s responsibility, just for a moment.

My mom’s fingers latch onto mine, ice cold and trembling. She squeezes, but it’s desperate, grasping at straws hoping to trick ourselves into believing this is enough. Her hand is smaller than I remember—thin, breakable—like porcelain that’s already been cracked once. And maybe I should be the one holding her up, telling her it’s okay. But I can’t. Not right now.

Someone’s talking, but their words don’t reach me. It’s all just noise, like a TV turned up too loud in the background while my brain is stuck on repeat.

Cancer.

The word hits like shrapnel. It doesn’t belong in my life, doesn’t belong in this moment. It wedges itself into the cracks of my mind, refusing to make sense. Just weeks ago, I had direction—I was supposed to be there for Dylan, the boyfriend who held her up after losing her twin. But now? Now, I’m the one slipping, drowning in something I can’t even fathom, let alone survive.

The day after the accident, my legs just gave out. I told myself it was exhaustion, that my body was just catching up to the grief. My parents chalked it up to shock, but deep down, I knew better. Dr. Abrams had brushed it off previously as severe anemia. I wanted to believe him. I wanted it to be simple—just a bag of iron dripping into my veins, a few pills, and I’d be fine. Patch me up, send me on my way, no questions asked. But bodies don’t work like that. Mine doesn’t, anyway.

This time…they ran more tests, and foundit. Cancer. I swear I felt the axis of my world tilt. The idea that my own body had betrayed me, that something was rotting inside me—I couldn’t make it make sense. I’d been ripped out of my own life and shoved into someone else’s nightmare.

And even now, with it staring me in the face, I can’t make it real. It doesn’t belong. How the hell is this my life? How is this the next chapter? I cling to who I was before, but it’s already slipping, leaving me staring at a version of myself I don’t recognize—one I never thought I’d be.

Here we are again—another sterile room, another stranger with a clipboard, ready to carve my world into something unrecognizable. The whole goddamn room feels like it’s closing in, the ground beneath me itching to drop out and send me into whatever hell this is meant to be.

Dr. Hawkins’ eyes are too damn knowing, like he’s rehearsed this exact conversation a hundred times before. It pisses me off. My hands twitch, restless for something to hit. His words take a second to land, like they have to beat their way through the fog in my brain before they mean anything at all.Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.I think I’m supposed to understand what it means, but it feels like a misfired bullet—meant for someone older, someone else. Not me.

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