2. - – Sienna
CHAPTER TWO
-
SIENNA
I shift my jaw, like I'm trying to work the words loose. I stare past her… somewhere over her shoulder, anywhere but at her face. “He…” My voice catches, and I clear my throat, shifting slightly in my seat. “His name was Kieran.” Saying it out loud feels wrong. Like I’ve broken some unspoken rule.
Like if I say it too many times, it will start to feel real in a way I’m not ready for.
The room feels smaller suddenly. Quieter in an unsettling way; as if even his name is haunting me.
I drag my tongue across my teeth, catching the metallic taste left behind from my earlier bite; the pain is a reminder that I am alive while they are gone. I inhale deeply before I continue. “I met him at my brother's funeral.”
The words feel strange leaving my mouth, like they don't belong to me. The memory settles over me before I can stop it. Everything about that day feels… distant. Blurred around the edges. Like I was there, but not really inside my own body. A dream or perhaps even a nightmare that kept going; one I was never allowed to wake up from. People kept coming up to me. One after another. Their words all started to sound the same as the “I'm sorry for your loss, Hun” and “ He's in a better place” played on constant loops mixed in with” If you need anything, let us know.” The same phrases, repeated so many times they stopped sounding like words. I nodded. I thanked them.“I don’t remember most of it,” I admit quietly. “Just… pieces.”
My fingers twitch against each other, nails pressing into my skin. “I remember how they looked at me.”
“Like I was going to fall apart if they said the wrong thing.” A humorless breath leaves me.
“Maybe they weren’t wrong.” My chest rises with a slow breath that does nothing to steady me.
“He didn't look at me like that though.” My voice drops without me meaning it to. “He didn't even say anything at first.”
I can still see it if I let myself. He stood off to the side, not too close, not too far.
Like he understood exactly how much space I needed without ever asking.
‘He just… stayed.” A breath catches in my throat.
“Later, he told me he knew Jax.” Which at the time I thought was obvious since he was standing at his funeral.
“They were in the same support group.” That part settles heavier than anything else. “ He already knew what it looked like… watching someone you love disappear like that.” I swallowed hard, my jaw tightening. “And somehow… that made it easier to stand next to him.”
I shift in my seat, rubbing my hands together like I can get rid of the feeling crawling under my skin. “I didn’t even know he was sick yet,” I add, almost as an afterthought. Another pause as that statement washed over me. “I think that’s the part that messes with me the most.”
My jaw tightens. “I had already watched cancer take my brother.” I finally look up at her, something sharper in my expression now. “And somehow…” My voice drops. “It still took him too.”
I looked into her eyes for the first time since our session began. Desperately hoping he would vanish from my memory for just a moment if I could focus on her instead. We both stayed silent a moment too long before she said “ Tell me more about him- more about the day you met.”
Then just like that my mind betrays me and pulls me in- forcing me back to him.
The office disappears. The walls. The clock. The woman sitting across from me. All of it. And suddenly, I'm standing beside my brother's casket again. “I don’t even know where to start.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Start where most stories do,” she says. “When you first saw him.”
I didn’t even notice him at first. Not really.
Not until the room started to thin out and the noise dulled into something more manageable.
That’s when I saw him. Still standing in the same place.
Hands tucked into the pockets of a dark jacket, shoulders slightly hunched like he was trying to take up less space than he did.
He wasn’t looking at the ground like everyone else had been.
He was watching me. Not in a way that made my skin crawl.
Not in that pitying, careful way people had been all day. Just… watching.
Like he understood something I hadn’t said out loud.
I should’ve looked away. I didn’t. For a second, it felt like everything else in the room fell quiet again.
Like it was just the two of us standing there in the middle of something neither of us knew how to fix.
He was the one who broke it first. “You don’t have to stay,” he said.
His voice was low. Careful. Like he wasn’t sure if speaking would make it worse.
I blinked at him, thrown off by it. “What?” “You don’t have to stay,” he repeated, nodding slightly toward the crowd behind me. “They’ll understand.”
A short breath leaves me… almost a laugh, but not quite. “They won’t,” I say. It comes out flat. Automatic. His expression doesn’t change much, but something in his eyes softens just slightly. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Probably not.” There’s a pause. Not uncomfortable. Just… there.
“I’m Kieran,” he adds after a second, like he’s giving me the option to take it or leave it.
I hesitate longer than I should. Names feel too permanent right now.
Too real. “Sienna.” It comes out quieter than I mean for it to.
He nods once, like that’s enough. Like he doesn’t need anything else from me.
“I knew Jax,” he says. And just like that, everything inside me stills. The room. The noise. The people. Gone.
My chest tightens, my fingers curling into my palms. “How?” The word barely makes it out.
“Support group,” he says. “We went to the same one.” I stare at him for a second longer than I mean to, trying to piece together something that suddenly feels too big to understand.
“You knew him,” I repeat, quieter now. He nods again.
“Yeah.” Another pause. “He talked about you.” That shouldn’t hit as hard as it does.
But it does. I look away first this time, my throat tightening as I try to breathe through it.
“Of course he did,” I mutter, but there’s no bite behind it.
Just something softer. Something tired. When I glance back at him, he’s still there.
Still not looking at me like I’m broken. Just… there.
And for the first time that entire day, I don't feel alone in my grief.