"So you ended up going," Dr. Mendel said, her voice carrying neither judgment nor particular praise, just an acknowledgment of the fact.
Connie nodded. "Yeah. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."
"Tell me about it," Dr. Mendel prompted, adjusting her position slightly in the chair across from Connie.
"It was nice, actually," Connie looked up, meeting Dr. Mendel's gaze. "Mrs. Colton put up all these photos of Jimmy so you really felt like you were like in a museum or a shrine or something of his life. It didn’t feel weird, though, like a funeral or memorial. It was just people that cared about him being altogether, enjoying each other’s company, telling their favorite stories."
"That sounds lovely," Dr. Mendel said. "What was it like seeing everyone again?"
"Good. Weird, but good," Connie's fingers continued working at the thread on her sweater. "I’ve been avoiding these people like crazy, everyone from St. Joe’s and the Coltons but it was actually nice to catch up with them. I forgot how much I missed some of them."
Dr. Mendel nodded, her eyes warm behind her glasses. She waited a beat before asking her next question, and Connie could almost feel her weighing her words.
"Was Brice there?"
The question hung in the air. Connie had been expecting it, yet it still made her stomach tighten.
"No," she said, her voice smaller now. "He didn't come."
"How did that make you feel?" Dr. Mendel's tone remained neutral, giving Connie space to explore her own reaction.
Connie exhaled slowly, trying to untangle the knot of emotions that had formed when she'd realized Brice wasn't going to show up. "Angry, at first. I mean, it was his brother's birthday. His family was trying to do something meaningful, and he couldn't even show up? Sophie, the poor girl, kept checking her phone. I could tell they thought he was coming."
"That sounds difficult to witness."
"Yeah," Connie pushed her hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture that Mendel had picked up on over the year. "But then... I don't know. Part of me understood it, too. It's like... going to the funeral again, in a way. Having to face everyone, see the same pitying looks. Maybe it was too much for him."
Dr. Mendel tilted her head slightly. "You're finding empathy for his absence, even while being disappointed by it."
"I guess," Connie shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the realization she'd been avoiding all week. "There's something else, though. Something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about."
"Go on," Dr. Mendel encouraged.
"I was..." Connie felt her cheeks flush with shame. "I was kind of relieved he wasn't there."
"And that makes you feel...?" Dr. Mendel prompted gently.
"Horrible," Connie whispered. "Like, what kind of person am I? Making his brother’s birthday about me, about us. It’s just so fucking weird because at the same time, I was disappointed he wasn't there. I wanted to see him and I didn't want to see him. Is that fair to him? Is that fair to Eli? Is that fair to me?"
Dr. Mendel allowed the silence to stretch for a moment, giving Connie's words the space they deserved.
"Connie," she said finally, her voice gentle but firm. "What you're describing is completely normal. Human emotions are rarely simple or singular. We can hold contradictory feelings simultaneously, especially when it comes to relationships that matter to us."
"But it feels wrong," Connie insisted. "Like I'm being selfish, making it about me when it should be about Jimmy. Or wanting to see him is like borderline cheating on Eli."
"Grief isn't a competition," Dr. Mendel said. "Your feelings about Brice and your grief for Jimmy can exist side by side without diminishing either one. Same thing with your feelings about your relationship with Eli and your evolving one with Brice."
Connie considered this, letting her gaze drift to the window.
"I think," she said slowly, "I'm afraid of what seeing him would do to me. Would I fall apart? Would I be angry? Would I..."
"Would you still care about him?" Dr. Mendel finished the thought.
Connie nodded, feeling exposed. "And what does that say about me? That after everything, I still..."
"It says you're human," Dr. Mendel said simply. "Our capacity to feel complex, even contradictory emotions is what makes us human, Connie. It's not something to be ashamed of."
"So what do I do with all of this?" Connie asked, gesturing vaguely at her chest as if the emotions were physical things she could grasp.
"You acknowledge them," Dr. Mendel replied. "You give yourself permission to feel everything. The anger, the relief, the disappointment, the lingering attachment. And then, little by little, you decide what serves you and what you need to let go of."
"I don't know if I'm ready to see him," she admitted. "But I think... I think someday I will be. Right?"
Dr. Mendel smiled. "And that's more than enough for today."
…
Liz padded down the stairs in her slippers, the first morning light filtering through the curtains. The party had gone later than expected, with the last guests leaving well after midnight. She paused at the bottom step, surprised to find Tom already up, methodically collecting paper plates and cups from the coffee table.
He looked up as she entered, offering a tired smile. Liz returned it, the silence between them comfortable for the first time in months. She moved to the kitchen without a word, stepping carefully around the balloons still floating in clusters around the living room.
The coffee maker came to life under her touch. Liz pulled out the leftover sandwich platter from the refrigerator, arranging the contents on a fresh serving plate.
"Did you hear from him?" she asked as she sliced a leftover quiche.
Tom shook his head, tying off another garbage bag. "No. I didn’t. You?"
Liz shook her head, letting the information settle without the sting it might have carried yesterday. She arranged some fruit beside the quiche slices, her hands moving with purpose.
"It was a good night," Tom said, crossing to the kitchen island.
"It was," Liz agreed. She poured coffee into a mug and slid it across the counter.
Tom moved around the island, into her space. Liz felt her breath catch as he leaned forward, his hand finding the small of her back. His lips brushed against hers, tentative at first, then with quiet certainty.
"Gross! You have a room upstairs for all of that!" Sophie's voice broke the moment as she bounded down the stairs in flannel pajama pants and one of Jimmy's old hoodies.
Liz pulled back, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. Tom kept his hand on her waist, not letting her step away completely.
"How you think you got here?" Tom warned with mock seriousness.
Sophie rolled her eyes dramatically but couldn't hide her smile as she slid onto a barstool. "Whatever. Is that breakfast? I'm starving."
"Leftovers deluxe," Liz said, pushing the plate toward her daughter.
Sophie grabbed a piece of quiche, examining it critically before taking a bite.
Liz watched as Tom ruffled Sophie's hair before sitting beside her, reaching for a sandwich quarter. The three of them ate in comfortable silence, punctuated by Sophie's running commentary on the various guests that showed up, including Ellie, her former best friend.
Outside, the sun climbed higher, bathing the kitchen in warm light. Liz took a sip of her coffee, letting the warmth spread through her chest. They weren't whole, they never would be again, but they were finding a new way to be a family.
"Mom?" Sophie's voice pulled her from her thoughts. "Can we keep some of the pictures up? Not all of them, obviously, but maybe a few? I like seeing him around."
Tom's hand found Liz's across the counter, squeezing gently.
"Of course we can, sweetheart," Liz said. "I think that's a great idea."
…
The sunlight stabbed through the windshield like needles directly into Brice's brain. Each pulse of his headache synchronized perfectly with the yellow dashes on the highway as they disappeared beneath his truck. His mouth tasted like something had crawled inside and died.
He turned the radio off after the first five minutes. Even the lowest volume felt like someone screaming directly into his ear canal. The silence that replaced it wasn't much better, leaving too much room for thoughts he didn't want to have.
The drive passed in a blur of green highway signs and too-bright sunlight. By the time he pulled into the campus parking lot, Brice's head felt like it was splitting open. He rested his forehead against the steering wheel for a moment, gathering whatever strength remained in his depleted body.
His phone vibrated again in his pocket. It had been going off non-stop since he'd woken up in his truck, passed out in the campus parking lot. Brice finally pulled it out and squinted at the screen.
Seventeen missed calls. Twenty-three text messages. Multiple Instagram and Twitter notifications. The names blurred together: Mom, Dad, Sophie, Augustus, Abdul, Skylar, Skylar, Skylar, Skylar.
"Fuck," he muttered, his voice sounding alien in his own ears.
He couldn't deal with any of it right now. Not the inevitable disappointment in his parents' voices. Not Skylar's increasingly demanding messages. Brice shoved the phone back into his pocket and dragged himself out of the truck, wincing as his feet hit the pavement.
The walk to his dorm building took three times longer than usual. Each step jostled his brain, sending fresh waves of pain radiating through his skull. The afternoon sun felt like a personal attack as Brice kept his eyes on the ground, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other.
When he finally reached his building, the cool dimness of the lobby was a momentary relief. He trudged toward the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator, despite the protest from his body.
He was halfway up the first flight when he heard her voice.
"Is this why you can’t return my calls?"
Skylar sat at the top of the stairs, arms crossed over her chest.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Brice continued his climb, wondering if he was still drunk and seeing things.
She didn't move from her spot, forcing him to stop directly in front of her. That's when he first noticed it, the small, rounded swell visible beneath her tight t-shirt. His eyes fixed on it, unable to look away, as the implications crashed over him like a wave.
"Surprise," she said, her voice flat and emotionless.
