Grief did not arrive all at once.
It came in pieces, slipping into the spaces between hours, hiding in ordinary moments where Saelith least expected it.
In the mornings, she would wake up and reach for her phone, already preparing to text her mother about the weather, about breakfast, about nothing at all.
Her fingers would freeze halfway through typing.
The silence that followed felt heavier than any sound.
The house changed after the funeral.
Not physically.
The walls stayed the same color.
The furniture remained where it had always been.
But the air felt thinner, like something essential had been removed and never replaced.
Saelith moved through rooms quietly, as if noise might make the loss real in a way she was not ready to face.
Ireon started coming over without asking.
At first, it was awkward.
He would stand near the door, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the floor like he wasn't sure he was allowed to exist there anymore.
Saelith never told him to come in. She simply stepped aside, and he understood.
They didn't talk much in the beginning.
They sat at opposite ends of the couch, television playing shows neither of them followed.
Sometimes hours passed without a single word.
It wasn't uncomfortable.
It was necessary.
Silence, she learned, could be a form of mercy.
Ireon was the only person who didn't try to fix her.
Everyone else asked questions they didn't want answers to.
Everyone else said things like she's in a better place or you're so strong.
Ireon said nothing.
He just stayed.
One afternoon, weeks after the accident, Saelith found him in the kitchen staring at the sink.
"I can still smell it," he said suddenly.
She didn't ask what he meant.
"Gasoline," he continued.
"Every time it rains."
She nodded.
"Me too."
That was how they began to survive.
By naming the things that haunted them instead of pretending they weren't there.
School became something they endured rather than attended.
Teachers spoke to Saelith gently, as if she might break under the wrong tone. Classmates avoided her or stared too long. She learned to keep her head down, her face neutral.
Ireon walked her to every class without discussing it.
It became routine.
Sometimes, during lunch, they would sit beneath the bleachers, backs against cold metal, sharing silence and a single pack of crackers neither of them really wanted.
"I don't feel real anymore," Ireon said once, voice quiet.
"Like I'm just… watching someone else live my life."
Saelith swallowed. "I feel real. Too real. Like everything hurts all the time."
They exchanged a look then, something unspoken passing between them.
Different pain.
Same wound.
At night, Saelith began to have dreams.
She would be back in the car, hands reaching, screaming her mother's name, always too late.
She would wake up gasping, sheets twisted around her legs, heart racing like it was trying to escape her chest.
The first time it happened, she didn't call anyone.
The second time, she called Ireon without thinking.
He answered on the second ring. "Saelith?"
"I can't sleep," she said, voice thin.
"I'm coming over," he replied immediately.
He sat on the floor beside her bed while she cried into her hands, shoulders shaking with everything she refused to release during the day.
He didn't touch her.
He didn't interrupt.
He just stayed until her breathing slowed and the shaking eased.
After that, it became a pattern.
When she couldn't sleep, he came.
When he couldn't breathe, she answered.
They learned each other's breaking points the way other people learned favorite colors.
Months passed.
Grief softened, but it never disappeared.
It settled into their bones, something they carried rather than fought.
Saelith became responsible too quickly, managing paperwork, finances, conversations she was never meant to handle at her age.
Ireon reacted differently.
He grew restless.
He skipped classes.
Stayed out late.
Started writing songs he never finished, melodies sharp and aching, like unfinished apologies.
Saelith noticed, but she didn't stop him.
She understood the need to escape, even if she didn't share it.
"You don't have to be strong all the time," she told him once.
He laughed softly.
"Neither do you."
They were wrong, both of them.
They were always strong.
One evening, as they sat on the roof of Saelith's house watching the sky turn orange and bruised purple, Ireon spoke without looking at her.
"If you hadn't been there that night," he said, "I think I would've disappeared."
She glanced at him, chest tightening.
"You didn't disappear."
"Because you wouldn't let me."
She didn't respond.
She just leaned her head against his shoulder.
He stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, like the contact had always been inevitable.
That was when the line blurred.
Not suddenly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that neither of them noticed when grief turned into something else.
Something warmer.
Something dangerous.
Ireon:
She doesn't know it, but she became my anchor.
Not because she held me back, but because she reminded me I was still here.
I don't know when dependence became devotion.
I only know that the thought of losing her terrifies me more than the night that took everything else.