Reed's POV
It's quiet, way too quiet. The kind of quiet that presses against your ears and makes everything inside you feel too loud.
The scent of lilies hangs in the air, thick and heavy. Sweet in a way that turns my stomach. I've always hated lilies but she didn't. They were her favorite and she said they smelled like hope.
Now they just smell like endings. I sit in the front row, hands clasped so tightly in my lap that my knuckles have gone pale. My jaw aches from clenching it, from holding everything in. I haven't cried. Not once. Not when the doctor told me she was gone. Not when I held her cold hand in the hospital room that felt too bright, too white, too empty. Not even when they zipped her up like she was just… paperwork to be processed.
People keep talking around me, offering condolences like spare change — small, meaningless, things they think will help but don't even scratch the surface of the crater in my chest.
