Chapter Thirty-three
NINA
Seven Years Earlier
NEW YORK CITY
Grief was like an ocean. Sometimes it was calm, stretching endlessly, quiet but heavy. Other times, it dragged, stealing the breath from our lungs, the light from our eyes, the fight from our bodies.
Ronan had been drowning for months, or perhaps he was disappearing into the waves.
I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to bring him back.
We knew his parents were sick. We knew the visits to the hospital would stop being visits and become goodbyes.
But we didn’t know it would happen so fast. That Ronan would come back from class and collapse onto the floor, his body wracked with silent sobs.
That he would be too numb to even scream, too broken to even lash out.
I moved in with him after. Packed a bag and left everything behind without a second thought. School didn’t matter. Fashion didn’t matter. Nothing did, except making sure he had someone to hold onto while his world burned.
He barely left the apartment. He barely ate.
The only people he talked to were me, Lucio, and his aunt, Rosa.
Even then, it had been like pulling teeth.
Most days, he looked at nothing. Or he cried.
Or he locked himself in our room, and I sat beside him, whispering I loved him, I was here, I wouldn’t leave.
I took over his classes. I sat in for his online lectures, submitted his assignments, and took the quizzes that made me want to bash my head into the desk.
I had done it because he couldn’t. Because right then, existing had been the hardest thing in the world for him, and if I could take even one burden off his shoulders, I would.
When I thought things couldn’t get worse, they did as the months progressed.
His little sister got diagnosed with cancer.
I had watched the light die in his eyes all over again. Watched the barely-there strength he had left crumble into dust.
Now, all that remained was sorrow. A hollow, aching kind of pain had filled every inch of our small apartment.
And anger.
Ronan hadn’t said much, but when he did, it was sharp, edged with a fury that had nowhere to go. I didn’t blame him. How could I? Life had kept taking and taking, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
I held him at night when he had let me. Pressed kisses to his hair, traced patterns on his back, whispering promises of forever.
He hadn’t said anything back, but he had clung to me, and that had been enough.
I should’ve known.
I should’ve known something was off when I walked through the door, the apartment feeling too still.
I knew immediately something inside Ronan had cracked.
I found him by the window.
His shoulders slumped forward, his fingers pressed against the glass, like he could somehow feel the world outside slipping through his grasp. His face was pale, drained of everything that used to be him. His usual warmth, his fire, it was all gone.
I took a breath, steadying myself before I said anything.
“Ronan…”
He didn’t look around or even flinch. His eyes were locked on some distant place only he could see, his face unreadable.
I moved closer, each step feeling heavier until I was sitting beside him on the windowsill. Without saying a word, I climbed into his lap, curling against him like I always did when he needed me.
He was cold.
His chest rose and fell in slow, shallow breaths, and I felt him tremble under me, but he didn’t pull away. He sat there, his body a stiff wall beneath mine, as if he wasn’t sure how to feel anymore.
“I’ve lost everything,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
I closed my eyes, heart clenching tight in my chest. But I couldn’t let him fall apart completely.
“You haven’t lost me,” I said, my words quiet but firm. I reached up and cupped his face in my hands, turning it gently toward me, so I could see the torment in his eyes. “You have me, Ro.”
His eyes flickered, but the pain there was too much. “I’ve pushed you away,” he said, the words almost a confession.
“No,” I breathed, my hand sliding to his chest, feeling the frantic beat of his heart. “You can’t push me far enough to leave you, Ronan.”
I saw the vulnerability in his eyes, and that’s when he broke.
His face twisted in pain, and the sobs started.
It was like all the walls he’d been holding up came crashing down, and I couldn’t stop the tears from slipping down my own cheeks as I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight as if I could somehow keep him together. But he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“My sister died,” he choked out between sobs. “T-this morning.”
My heart stopped.
Everything inside me went cold.
“What the hell?” The words tumbled out in a panic, an anger so fierce I didn’t know where it came from. “No. No, that can’t—”
I pulled back, searching his face, desperate for him to say something, anything, to make this make sense. But his eyes, red and swollen, told me everything I needed to know.
My heart shattered in a way I didn’t think was possible. He was already drowning, and now… now he was being dragged under by the weight of it all.
I kissed him then, desperately, my hands tangling in his hair as I tried to put every ounce of love, every promise I had, into that single kiss. But he didn’t kiss me back.
He let go, and I held him as he cried, as his broken sobs shattered the silence around us.