𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄

ᴏɴᴇ ʜᴜɴᴅʀᴇᴅ ꜰɪᴠᴇ

His daughter was his keeper—whether she knew it or not.

"Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if she never existed?" Jase asked.

Matteo turned his head, almost forgetting that his partner in sadness had been sitting by his side since they welcomed everyone home together. His brown eyes weren't looking at him, but rather at the small stick in his hand that he used to draw in the wet sand. Matteo noted the F's and J's written in his lap before replying.

"Never. She's the best thing that happened to me."

Jase nodded solemnly, "I'm envious of you."

"Fatherhood isn't easy," Matteo watched his daughter, "It's trial and error. Loving and disciplining at the same time. When you have a tiny person who looks to you for everything natural, it can feel like the most amazing thing and also like the biggest test. It's hard to do right by her sometimes, even though that's been my only intention."

"Yes," Jase said slowly, "But she's still yours."

"That she is."

"And she's Lilly's," he continued, his voice almost distant now, like he was speaking, but not to Matteo, "—at least you have this piece of her. This part of her that walks and talks and loves. A child who looks and acts like her. I'd give anything to have that. Anything to have more than just the memories stuck in my head. I'd give anything to have something to remind me not to forget."

Matteo stared at him. Jase didn't share the sentiment, but it didn't matter. Because all Matteo focused on was the despair in his voice—the pinch in his brows and the blood that sprinkled the water from his never-ending, bleeding heart.

He'd felt so alone, so singular, in the last few weeks mourning Lilliana while being free, that he hadn't even acknowledged that he wasn't alone. He'd been so focused on isolating, at trying not to get too close to anyone again, that he hadn't realized his mirror sat a foot away from him and bore a head of shaggy brown hair and a dead girlfriend.

"How're you doing?" he questioned, "I know the funeral is in a few days."

"How did you do when you found out Lilly was gone?"

Matteo paused. Gazed at his daughter.

"Yeah. There's no putting that into words."

Jase moved his head in a nod, but it felt robotic, as if doing such a mundane task took an exhaustive amount of effort out of him.

"Sometimes I think about us, and I imagine that we're just two teenagers. Two kids who'd met before shit turned real and we were made out to be weapons. That in a parallel universe somewhere, I hand her the dishes and she dries them. That our names are spelled out with magnets on the fridge between the awards and grades of our children."

He paused, then finally turned his head toward him.

Matteo watched the way the purple eyebags moved with a semblance of expression as the corners of his mouth tilted upward. He watched the way his eyes lit up with a tiny blaze of fire as he recalled the love of his life and exactly how she made him feel.

"—does that sound pathetic?"

"No," he said breathlessly, "Not at all."

"The guilt eats at me, y'know. During moments like these, when my heart begs to join the chaos behind us, to have fun. My mind tells me that only one of us pressed pause on our lives, but my heart screams at me. To not forget her. Her voice. Her laugh. The way her eyes crinkled when she was genuinely happy, and how dark they became when she was mad."