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ROMAN

The world ended on a rainy Thursday night.

I don't remember the crash. Not really. Just headlights screaming toward us, Maddie's sharp gasp, and the sickening crunch of metal collapsing. Then blackness.

When I woke up, everything was too bright. Too white. A sterile smell clung to my nose, and there was an IV taped to my arm. For a few seconds, I thought it had been a nightmare. That Maddie would be beside me, cracking some stupid joke about how I looked like hell. But then my father's voice cut through the fog.

"She's gone, Roman."

I think my soul ripped apart in that moment.

I don't remember much after that. I must have screamed because my throat was raw when I woke up again. Will was there, sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed, staring at the floor like if he looked up, he might shatter. His hands were clenched, knuckles white. His voice was hollow when he finally spoke.

"She was everything to me."

I wanted to tell him I knew. That she was everything to me too. But the words wouldn't come.

***

Maddie's funeral was two days later. The sky was a dull, heavy gray, thick with the kind of storm that never quite breaks. I stood in the front, my body stiff in a black suit that felt too tight, too suffocating. The casket was closed. They wouldn't let us see her. Not after what the crash had done.

Will stood beside me, his shoulders shaking, silent tears streaking his face. He hadn't spoken all morning. Graysen was next to him, his usually sharp expression hollowed out. Aiden and Kat held hands tightly, as if letting go would pull them under. Alexei stood behind them, his face unreadable, but his eyes were red.

Alina wasn't there.

She hadn't answered a single call, hadn't shown up at the hospital, hadn't been here now. I wanted to be angry, to curse her name for not saying goodbye to the person who loved her like a sister. But all I felt was numb.

The priest spoke in a low voice, but I barely heard him. My hands were clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. Maddie was too loud, too wild, too alive to be lying in that box.

Then they started lowering her into the ground, and Will broke. A choked, gut-wrenching sob ripped from him as he fell to his knees. He pressed a hand to his face, shaking so hard that Graysen had to grab his arm to steady him. I turned away, because if I looked at him for another second, I would shatter too.

Kat was crying into Aiden's chest, her small frame trembling. Alexei just stood there, silent, but his jaw was clenched like he was holding back something too dangerous to let loose.

And then there was me.

Standing there, feeling like my insides had been hollowed out, like I was nothing but an empty body walking through a life that didn't belong to me anymore. Maddie had been my little sister. My only sibling. And now she was just a name on a gravestone.

The priest finished speaking. People began to leave. But I stayed. I stood there, staring at the fresh dirt covering my sister, and realized something terrifying.

I couldn't remember the sound of her laugh.

??????????

I don't know how long I stood there after everyone left. The cemetery had emptied, the sun slipping lower, but I couldn't move. My hands were shaking at my sides, nails digging into my palms so hard they might draw blood. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, of flowers that would wilt in a matter of days.

Will had been the last to go. He had stayed kneeling by her grave long after everyone else had left, his fingers pressed against the cold dirt like he could still reach her. When Graysen finally convinced him to stand, he looked at me, his eyes hollow.

"She was supposed to be my forever," he whispered. His voice was wrecked, torn apart. "I was supposed to marry her."

I couldn't answer.

Because I knew. I had seen it in the way he looked at her, the way she had looked back. Maddie had been his whole world. And now that world was gone.

I let him leave. Let him break somewhere else because I couldn't bear to see it anymore. But I stayed. Alone with the silence, with the fresh grave, with the overwhelming weight pressing down on my chest.

A cold wind cut through the cemetery, rattling the branches of the bare trees above. I barely felt it.

I swallowed hard and dropped to my knees, pressing my forehead against the damp ground.

"I'm so sorry, Maddie," I whispered. My voice cracked. "I was supposed to protect you."

She had been in the passenger seat. I had been driving. That much, I knew. But the rest was a blur of screeching tires and shattering glass. The doctors told me there was nothing I could've done, that the other car had come out of nowhere, that the impact had been too sudden, too violent.

But none of that mattered. She had been with me, and now she was gone.

I stayed until my hands were numb, until my suit was soaked from kneeling in the damp grass. Until the world grew dark around me.

Then I felt a presence behind me.

I turned sharply, my pulse hammering, but it was only Alexei. He stood a few feet away, his expression unreadable, his dark coat blending into the shadows. He didn't say anything at first, just watched me.

"I knew you'd still be here," he finally said.

I swallowed against the lump in my throat. "She's gone, Alexei." The words barely came out.

He nodded once, like he understood. Maybe he did. He walked closer, his movements slow, careful, like he thought I might break. "You should come back."

"I can't."

He sighed, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. "Then I'll wait."

He sat down a few feet away, staring at the grave. Neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say.

I don't know how much time passed, but at some point, I closed my eyes, exhaustion weighing me down. I thought maybe, just maybe, Maddie's voice would come back to me. That I would hear her laugh, remember the way she used to tease me, hear the way she said my name.

But there was nothing. Just silence.