Page 60 of Seven Lost Summers
Beside us, Theo sinks to the floor without a sound, his hands tangled in his hair, his eyes vacant, as if the world has slipped out from under him.
He doesn’t say a word.
Just pulls his phone from his pocket with shaking hands. His fingers fumble against the screen, clumsy, foreign. He taps her name.
The call screen lights up.
Ringing.
One ring.
Two.
My heart stutters, because I know exactly what he’s doing. I know what he’s hoping. If he can just hear her voice, even for a second, maybe it won’t be real. Maybe this is all some kind of mistake, some nightmare we’ll wake from.
Three rings.
He presses the phone harder to his ear, his jaw clenched so tight it looks ready to crack. Nate reaches for him but stops. We all stop.
Four rings.
I hold my breath. I don’t know why I expect silence, but I do.
“Come on, Bianca,” Theo whispers, his voice breaking apart. “Pick up. Pick up the fucking phone.”
Her voicemail cuts in. That familiar tone, then her voice—casual, sweet.“Hey, it’s Bianca. You know what to do.”
The call ends. Theo stares at the screen until the first tear slips down his cheek. Then another. And another.
He blinks hard, as if he can stop them, but his body begins to shake. The phone slips from his hand and clatters to the floor. His shoulders fold inward, and for a moment he looks like a kid who’s just learned the world isn’t fair. That good people die. That love can end in a fucking shopping mall dressing room.
“No.” It rips out of him—a word, a scream, a prayer. “No. Fuck, no—”
His fingers dig into his jeans, gripping hard as his body shakes. His spine curls inward, shoulders collapsing. His face crumples in a way I’ll never forget, as if every piece of him is shattering under the weight of her being gone. The sobs tear through him, full-body, violent, ugly. He drags his hands over his face, but it’s useless. The sound of him drowns out everything else.
Nate moves first.
He hauls Theo into his arms like his life depends on it.
Theo’s falling apart in front of me.
Nate’s holding him like his arms alone could stop him from unraveling. But I see it in Nate’s face. He’s breaking too. His chest rises too fast, his jaw locked tight, holding in a scream that wants out. His eyes flick around, landing on nothing, and still he’s trying to be the strong one for Theo.
I press a hand to my chest. My legs won’t move. My throat won’t open. I feel like I’m underwater. No light. No air. Just grief swallowing us whole.
I want to reach for them, to hold them both, to crawl into their pain and carry it on my back if it would stop them from breaking. But I can’t move. I’m frozen, watching something unfixable unravel right in front of me.
Then Nate looks up.
And fuck, that look.
His eyes are bloodshot, wet, wide with too much emotion and nowhere to put it. The second we lock eyes, I see the moment it shatters him. His mouth parts, just slightly, like he wants to speak, but nothing comes. He doesn’t need to. I see it in his face—the same pain, the same loss, the same fucking helplessness.
Nate reaches out, his hand closing around my wrist, tugging me forward as if he can’t take another breath without pulling me into it too, into the grief that belongs to all of us.
And I go, because I can’t hold myself up anymore either.
He pulls me down, my forehead pressing into his shoulder as the tears come.
