Page 178 of When the Storm Breaks
I don’t answer.
“Maybe not right away. Maybe not everything. But you knew.”
I force myself to stay still. Blank. Tall.
“One day,” he says, voice low, threatening. “You’ll see we’re not all that different.”
And maybe he’s right.
Maybe that day is today.
Chapter 57
Haiyden
It’s been seven months and three days since she left.
The news broke two weeks ago, and my dad’s name has been plastered across every headline since.
This morning feels the same as all the others. I drag myself out of bed, the weight of the last months pressing down on me.
Chase is still asleep. Margot’s just starting to stir, untangling herself from the blankets.
Everything’s adjusted. The world kept moving. We found a routine. Built something steady.
But the silence hits like a freight train.
I go through the motions. Get up. Get dressed.
Pull on a clean shirt and shorts without thinking too hard—without looking. Not at my bed. Not at Margot. Not at the empty space where Calla used to be.
I feel her absence. Every goddamn day.
The thought grips me, and with it comes the flood—each wave carving into what’s left of me, cracking at my edges, threatening to breakme open.
Mornings with Margot are the only thing that feel close to normal. She’s settled now—happier than she was at the start—though she still side-eyes me every time I pull the blankets off her, forcing her out of bed.
She grumbles, then crawls into my lap—warm and weighty. And for a second, it helps.
I scratch behind her ears. There’s love there. Real love.
But it’s not enough.
I’m trying to fill an emptiness that refuses to stay full. Trying to pour love into a space that only drains in its absence.
Even Margot’s unconditional love can’t fill the hole Calla left behind.
I’m always fighting.
With myself. With my past. With the world.
Fighting to push away the guilt, the longing, the memories that still threaten to spill over and break me wide open.
It’s better now.
Not like the first few weeks.
Back then, I spiraled—drank it away, shut it all out.
