Abigail – POV
The Saloon buzzed around me like nothing had changed. Sam and Sebastian were mid-pool game, laughing over some inside joke, the clack of billiard balls echoing off the walls. The jukebox crooned something vintage and upbeat. Marnie laughed at something Gus said behind the counter. The world kept spinning—loud, colorful, and completely indifferent.
But the couch beside me was still empty.
It’s already the end of the first week of spring. Seven whole days of cherry blossoms and blue skies, of everyone talking about new beginnings—and she’s still gone. Not missing like lost, not missing like dead. Just… gone. Like someone erased her from the frame.
And the worst part is, I know where she is.
I know the exact place. I could walk there blindfolded. But she won’t answer my texts. My calls go straight to voicemail. There’s no word. No explanation. Nothing.
It’s like she built a wall around her life and left me standing on the other side, holding everything we shared and not knowing where to put it anymore.
She was there—when Raz dropped the biggest bombshell of my life, when my mom stood next to the Wizard and confirmed everything. She held me while I sobbed, told me I wasn’t crazy. She fought for me.
And now? Silence.
I glance toward Sebastian, who’s chalking his cue stick like he’s preparing for war. Sam’s talking, but I can tell Sebastian’s not really listening. He hasn’t been for weeks. He pretends like he’s fine—aloof, withdrawn, as if indifference is a suit of armor he can hide inside.
But I see it. The hollow in his eyes. The way he stares a little too long at the door. The way he’s pretending so hard not to care.
It makes me feel crazy. Like I’m the only one unraveling.
“You want next round, Abby?” Sam’s voice cuts into my thoughts, cheerful and oblivious.
“No.” I exhale, not even trying to hide the edge in my voice. “I’m good.”
The cue ball clicks. Sebastian lines up his next shot, pretending he didn’t hear me. I can’t take it anymore. I push off the couch and walk straight out the door, the cool night air slapping me in the face.
I don’t even know where I’m going until I sit down on the worn bench next to the cemetery. The irony isn’t lost on me—this is where I come to feel close to the living. Because everyone else feels so far away.
I bury my face in my hands. My friends, my people, are either emotionally constipated or emotionally unavailable. I show up for everyone—my mom, the Wizard, Sam, Sebastian, even frickin’ Pierre when he was having that mid-life retail crisis. But when it’s me who needs something? I get silence. Cold stares. Shrugs.
And now Hannah.
The bench creaks as someone sits beside me.
“What’s wrong?” Sebastian’s voice is quiet. Careful. Not soft—Sebastian isn’t soft—but there’s something in his tone that says he’s actually listening.
I glance at him. Cigarette lit, glowing faintly. He’s staring at the moon like it might explain everything he refuses to.
“What isn’t wrong?” I murmur. Then louder, sharper, “Why are you acting like this is normal? Why don’t we talk about her?”
He doesn’t look at me. Just exhales smoke.
“Because it doesn’t change anything,” he says, low and tired. “Talking doesn’t bring her back.”
“But it helps.” My voice cracks. “It helps your brain process what your heart doesn’t understand. If I wanted to be around people who feel nothing, I’d hang out with the statues in the valley.”
He turns to me then, eyes darker than usual. “What do you want me to say, Abigail?” His voice sharpens. “That I miss her? That I’m furious she shut us out? That I lie awake wondering if she’s okay? You want a breakdown, is that it? So you can feel validated?”
The words sting—sharper than I expected. I blink at him, stunned.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t want you to fall apart. I just don’t want to be the only one noticing the empty space she left behind. It was the four of us, for a year. And now it’s just… us again. And no one even talks about what’s missing.”
Sebastian goes quiet. He flicks ash from the tip of his cigarette and leans back, head tilted toward the stars.
“I notice it,” he says finally. His voice isn’t cold now—just raw. “Every day. I notice her laugh not echoing off the walls. I notice the way I still turn to say something to her and then realize she’s not there.”
He pauses, cigarette hovering near his lips.
“But I can’t let my world stop just because hers did.”
That silence settles again. It doesn’t feel like peace. But it doesn’t feel like avoidance either. It feels like we’re both grieving out loud—finally.
I sit beside him, arms crossed tightly over my chest. The spring wind is soft, almost too soft for how sharp everything feels inside.
“I just miss my friend,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Me too.”
Sebastian POV: Sebastian – POV
But I can’t let my world stop just because hers did.
I hated how that sounded. Cold. Final. But I didn’t correct myself. I couldn’t. If I opened that door even a crack, I didn’t know what would come spilling out. So I stayed quiet, smoked my cigarette like it was the only thing keeping my hands from shaking.
Abigail didn’t say anything for a long time. She sat there beside me, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding something in. Maybe the same thing I was trying not to feel.
I could still see the spot on the bench where Hannah used to sit. I hated how the emptiness seemed permanent now. Like she’d been erased instead of just… gone for a while.
I stared up at the sky. Stars out tonight. Bright ones, even with the town lights. Hannah liked the stars. Used to talk about how they made her feel small in a comforting way. Said it made her pain feel less permanent. I remember her saying that once in winter—when everything was falling apart for her—and I didn’t know what to say, so I just held her hand.
I haven’t held anyone’s hand since. Sam tries though, of course.
Abigail sighed beside me. Not the casual kind—this one was heavy. Weighted. The kind you exhale when the silence starts suffocating you.
“I just miss my friend,” she whispered.
Me too, I thought. But saying it aloud felt like surrender. And I’m tired of surrendering to things I can’t fix.
"She was just the missing piece that I didn't know we needed." She said.
I felt that one in my chest. Like a piano string had snapped and now all the sound was wrong.
I took a drag off my cigarette. The burn helped. Not with the pain, but with the silence. It filled the gaps in places where words wouldn’t fit.
“She wasn't afraid of anything ever not with the mines, not even with you.” Abigail added.
“But she saw through all of it. No matter what I did to push her away. She looked right at me and didn’t flinch. I didn’t think anyone could do that.”
I dropped the cigarette, ground it into the dirt with my boot. My hands were trembling now. Subtle, but I felt it.
“She’s not dead,” Abigail said suddenly. “She’s not. So why does it feel like she is?”
“Because she shut us out,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “Because She left us.”
And I didn’t blame her. Not really. The things she went through in that cavern… the way she came back broken and quiet, like she’d lost pieces of herself in the shadows… we all saw it. But none of us did anything.
Especially me.
“I should’ve done more,” I muttered, my voice low. “I stayed with her for a while, but when she got bad, I panicked. I didn’t know what to say. And she didn’t want to be touched. She barely slept. Wouldn’t eat. I—”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat.
“I started sleeping on the couch just so I wouldn’t wake her up. She wouldn’t look at me anymore, and I didn’t know how to fix her. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. But all I could do was sit in that house and feel like I was watching someone disappear in real time.”
The bench creaked again as Abigail leaned back beside me. We were quiet for a long time.
"I have to tell you something." She said breaking the silence is a dramatic way. I looked over at her as she stared down at her hands.
"Harvey went and did a wellness check on her, and apparently, physically she has healed." Her voice trailed off giving me anxiety. It was a relief that she isn't in pain, but the anxiety came wondering why she hasn't come back yet.
"-but Harvey said she has severe PTSD. She went into a mental psychosis, which is-"
"I know what that is." I say looking away from here, I've gone through it for what seemed like six months, it was like I blacked out, for six months.
My hope began to fade. My heart and my chest hurt. Nobody deserves to be alone during something like that. Nobody.
“She didn’t want to disappear,” she said softly. “She just didn’t want to fall apart in front of you."
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But she did. She did fall apart in front of me, and I still walked away.
I buried my face in my hands.
Another silence. But this one wasn’t cold.
“She’ll come back,” she said. Not with conviction. Just hope.
And I realized I didn’t believe that anymore. Not fully
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