Page 26 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Each step toward the gravesite is heavier than the last. My boots crunch over gravel, before grass, but I barely register the sound.

Everything blurs together. Only noise under the weight pressing down on my shoulders.

My lungs keep tightening, as though they’re being squeezed by something I can’t shake off.

Theo walks beside me, silent. He’s a shadow of himself—shoulders hunched, eyes locked on the ground, fists shoved deep into his pockets.

His jaw’s clenched so hard I can see the muscle twitch, but he doesn’t speak.

Doesn’t blink. He’s holding everything in, sealing himself shut so nothing leaks out, and the weight scares the shit out of me.

Because I know what happens when he does that. I’ve seen where it leads.

Scarlet’s on my other side, barely holding herself upright.

Her eyes are red, her hands shaking, and her lip keeps trembling like she’s one second from falling apart.

She stares straight ahead, but her gaze is empty.

Hollow. I want to reach for her, to tell her it’s okay to break, but I don’t have the words. I’m barely holding myself together.

Behind us, I hear Mom sniff once, sharp and broken, and I know Dad’s got his arm around her.

But there’s nothing they can do.

No words. No prayers.

No fucking eulogy is going to fix this.

Bianca’s gone. And we’re walking toward the moment it becomes real… permanent… final.

I don’t want to take another step, but I keep moving, because she deserves that much.

Nothing remains of her but memories. And even those don’t seem safe anymore. Every time I try to hold on to one, it cuts me open. Her laugh echoes in my head, and it seems wrong—too far away, too fragile. Her voice used to ground me. Now she’s only a fucking ghost.

I thought I broke the day Quinn showed up, her face pale, her mouth trembling as she spoke the words that shattered everything.

But this is worse. This is standing in front of a white fucking coffin, knowing she’s in there.

Knowing that’s it. That’s where she ends.

No more late-night texts. No more smirks across the room. No more her.

My chest aches. I want to scream. I want to rip the world apart for doing this to her. For doing this to us. But I stand there. Useless. Fucked up. Broken in a way I’ll never come back from.

Because this grave, the silence, this fucking pain that won’t quit is all I have left.

The cemetery is full of people.

Some I recognize. Some I don’t. Faces blur into each other—dull eyes, forced sympathy, hands reaching out with condolences that mean fucking nothing. Every murmur seems wrong. Every goddamn whisper lands like a slap. No one knows what to say, and even if they did, I wouldn’t want to hear it.

I’m standing still, but it feels like I’m floating outside myself. Everything’s muted, like I’m underwater, the pressure building in my chest with every second that ticks by. My feet are planted in the grass, but I swear the ground could crack open beneath me and I wouldn’t flinch.

Bianca’s mother stands near the coffin, her body shaking as though she’s about to shatter.

She keeps rubbing at her eyes, trying to scrub away the grief, but the effort’s fucking useless.

There’s no fixing this. No undoing a damn thing.

Her sobs tear through the air, and I feel every single one of them hit.

This is what the end looks like.

Not some poetic goodbye.

Not a soft fade.

Just endless pain.

Finally, I lift my eyes to the coffin.

The flowers sitting on top are too fucking bright.

Reds and yellows, pinks and purples bursting as though they’re clueless about where they are.

The whole display insults me in a way, with how cheerful they are.

As if someone thought they could dress death up in color and make it easier to swallow. They’re loud. Bold. Over-the-top.

She would’ve hated them. I can already catch her voice full of that dry sarcasm, laughing and shaking her head. “Who the hell picked these out?”

She’d turn to Theo with that wicked glint in her eye, that grin that always meant trouble, and throw him the line. “Alright, Theo. Hit me with your best line about these tacky-ass funeral flowers.”

And he would’ve done it.

He always did so she would smile. Would’ve said something like, “These flowers look like a clown went on a vodka bender and threw up in a garden.”

And Bianca would fucking laugh. That loud, unfiltered kind of laugh that made everyone stop and stare.

Eyes shining, head thrown back, chest shaking as though she couldn’t hold the sound even if she tried.

And none of it would matter if Theo’s line was half-baked bullshit—she’d eat the words up anyway, make them sound like the funniest thing she’d ever heard. That was her.

But now, all we have is silence.

Movement pulls at the corner of my eye, and when I look up, I see Quinn.

She’s moving toward us, sunglasses on like they can hide the pain underneath.

Her cheeks are blotched red, streaked with tears she’s not even bothering to wipe away anymore.

Her lips pressed together so tight they’ve turned white.

There’s no hiding this kind of pain. I’ve never seen her look so small before.

She stops a few feet away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as if she can keep in the pain. Her chin trembles, and I can see her breathing start to hitch.

I lift my hand and hold my palm towards her.

“Come here,” I whisper.

Slowly, she takes a step. Then another.

By the time she reaches me, she’s already falling apart.

She crashes into my chest, arms around my waist, face buried in my shirt. Her body’s shaking, and I can feel every fucking ounce of pain pouring out of her.

I hold her tighter.

Let her fall apart in my arms, since there’s nowhere safe left to fall.

Then a voice sounds.

The priest begins to speak, his voice rising just enough to carry over the wind. Words about loss, about peace, about eternal rest. All delivered in that calm, practiced rhythm meant to comfort the grieving.

The words are distant, floating in the background, but all I register is the steady weight of Quinn leaning against me. She doesn’t make a sound, but I can sense her falling apart in the way her weight leans harder with every word spoken.

This is the end. This is the moment when everything we believe about life stops. I swallow, trying to push the ache clawing its way up my throat, but the pain sticks inside me. That white coffin stares back, daring me to accept what’s inside. Daring me to let her go.

But I can’t.

Time warps into something broken.

Seconds stretch and snap, looping in on themselves. I’m lost in a fog that doesn’t have an end or a beginning. Everything feels disconnected, as if I’m watching the events playout through glass. Distant echoes in a world that’s caved in. Nothing feels real. Everything hurts.

And that fucking coffin just sits there, holding all the pieces we’ll never get back.

A sound breaks through the haze. A mechanical hum, as it begins to lower her coffin into the ground.

When the fuck did they take the flowers off?

My eyes snap to the coffin.

That white box, inching downward, swallowed by dirt and finality.

I blink hard, but nothing changes. I only keep watching the coffin move slow, as though the world’s being cruel on purpose.

Every inch the box sinks, something in my chest tears deeper.

My heart feels stalled, caught in the space between beats, and all I can do is stand rooted and watch her disappear.

Theo inches forward, pulled toward the grave as though gravity’s got a hold on him by the throat.

His body moves on instinct as if he needs to be closer to her.

He keeps his eyes locked on the coffin as the box lowers, as though he’s trying to memorize every fucking inch of the wood before the sight disappears. He’s following.

Step by step.

Closer to the edge.

For a second, I swear he’s going in after her.

Then Mom slips past me and reaches for him. Her hand gently curls around Theo’s arm. She doesn’t say anything, just holds on. And somehow, that’s enough. Enough to keep him here.

The machine comes to a sudden stop.

The silence that follows isn’t peaceful. It’s a chokehold. Pressed down on all of us like grief decided to grow teeth.

Then it happens.

The first thud of dirt hits the coffin.

The impact slams through me, tearing straight into my chest. A sound I’ll never fucking forget. That dull sound of soil against wood. Brutal in a way no one prepares you for.

The first blow wounds. The noise screams finality. No softness. Only the earth swallowing her whole, one savage shovelful at a time.

Beside me, Quinn flinches.

Not once. Every single fucking time. Her body jerks like each hit is landing on her instead. I wrap my arm tighter around her, try to shield her from it, but I can’t. None of us can.

That sound keeps coming, and with every drop of dirt, it’s like we’re being buried too.

I register the weight of a hand on my shoulder, familiar. My Dad. He doesn’t speak. He never does when it matters most. He only stays beside me, solid and quiet, a lighthouse in the middle of my storm. And fuck, I’m tired of drowning.

Mom is the first one to speak.

“Sweetheart, the time has come to go,” she says to Theo. That same tone she always uses with him. From that first night when he came to our house, sat at the table to eat, eyes hollow, trying to disappear inside himself.

He blinks, and for a second, I think he hasn’t heard her.

Then Scarlet’s there too, slipping her hand into his. She doesn’t say anything. Just links her fingers with his and waits. Not forcing him. Not pushing. Just holding steady.

Theo exhales, and he lets Scarlet lead him back one step at a time.

Then Dad’s voice sounds behind me. “Come on, Son. It’s time to go.”

It’s only then that I notice there’s no one left at the graveside.

Just us.

Mom and Scarlet lead Theo past us without a word.

Quinn lifts her head. Her eyes meet mine, and fuck, the pain festering there knocks the air out of my lungs. I reach up and brush a strand of hair from her cheek. My fingers catch on a tear slipping down her skin.

Neither of us speaks.

We turn and walk away from the grave, leaving the only girl I’ve ever loved in the fucking ground. Cold. Gone. Forever. Because the hardest part isn’t letting go—

It’s knowing you never really can.