Page 26 of Remain

I let out a small, unsteady laugh. I want to ask him about the photos, about why he did it at all. The questions gather in my chest, insistent and heavy, but I don’t know how to voice them without opening something I’m not ready to confront. So I stay quiet and watch the way his hands rest loosely at his sides, wondering how many times they held a camera since I left.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It feels intrusive in this moment. I hesitate before pulling it out.

You okay? Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Was hoping to see you over Christmas. Is everything okay?

It’s not from Lena. It’s from Jack, the man I left behind in New York City.

The words blur. My worlds blur. I’m taken back to messy sheets with a warm body, city noise and a life that doesn’t ask questions.

Erik’s gaze flicks briefly to the phone, then back to my face. He doesn’t pry but something shifts anyway.

Two versions of me, pressing from opposite sides.

I lock the screen without responding and quickly slip the phone back into my pocket. Erik notices but he doesn’t comment. He just nods like he understands there are things I’m not saying yet.

“You hungry?” his deep voice thicker in the air than the tension between us. “Mrs. Kincaid’s got half the town at thecenter with too much food and not enough people. You know, the usual.”

I glance once more at the empty house, trying to take a mental screenshot one last time. Then I look back at him; at the man who has been standing quietly in the background of my life longer than I realized.

“Yeah,” the word barely making it out of my lips. “I think I am, but not there. Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere quieter?”

He opens the truck door for me without making a thing of it. “I know just the place.”

10

Erik

Savannah sitsacross from me with her shoulders drawn inward, my jacket still wrapped around her like it’s the only thing keeping her together. She hasn’t touched her food - two eggs, poached medium, sourdough, and a side of fruit. She never orders bacon or hash browns, even though that’s what she really wants, so I’ve learned to order extra, but this morning she isn’t even picking at that. She keeps stirring her coffee long after it’s gone cold.

I know that look, the way she chews on her bottom lip when she’s trying not to cry where anyone can see her. It’s the same one she used to get years ago, and seeing it now lands with more weight than I anticipate.

The diner feels louder than it needs to be. Silverware clinks against plates, hot coffee pours endlessly, Christmas carols blast through the speakers, and someone laughs too hard in the corner, like they’re trying to outrun something. Thenoise presses in from every direction, and it all feels wrong somehow, as if grief should come with its own private room.

“You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to be strong right now.” I try to offer to her.

Her hand stills around the spoon.

She looks up at me, eyes already glassy, like she’s been waiting for permission to stop holding it all in. “I signed everything today. I didn’t even cry when I did it. Isn’t that awful? Does that make me a bad person?”

“No,” I immediately reassure her. “It means you got through it.”

Her mouth trembles.“She got sick so fast,” Savannah whimpers, voice thin. “One minute she was fine. She was making plans. Telling me I worked too much. How we wanted to go to Paris for her birthday. She wanted to come to New York City, order a stupid overpriced hot dog with me. Then suddenly it was doctors and appointments and learning how to say things likeprognosiswithout falling apart.”

I move before I think about it, sliding out of the booth and sitting beside her instead. I reach for her hand slowly, giving her time to pull away. She doesn’t. Her fingers curl into mine like they’ve been waiting.

“I kept telling myself I’d come home more,” she whispers. “That I’d make time but there was always something. A deadline. A meeting. Another excuse.” Her voice breaks. “And then she stopped asking.”

That’s when she cries. That’s when, she finally, releases the weight she’s been trying to hold for so long.

I pull her into me, her forehead pressing into my chest, her shoulders shaking as she finally exhales everything she’s been holding back. Her hands clutch my sweater like she needs something to hold onto.

“I don’t even know who I am without her,” she cries into the fabric of my sweater. “She was my constant. My childhood. My adult life. She was… everything.”

I tighten my arms around her. “You don’t stop being her daughter just because she’s gone,” I remind her, gently. “You carry her. You always will.”

She shakes her head, breath hitching. “The house is empty, Erik. Everything’s gone. It’s like she never existed.”

“She did,” I say firmly. “I remember her. I knew her. She mattered.”