Emma looked up from her homework.
“Then I’ll push you across myself.”
Felix grinned.
“Good. But if you crash me into the principal, I’m telling everyone you did it on purpose.”
They laughed.
I laughed, too.
I wish I could go back to that afternoon and stay there forever.
Six months later, Felix died.
He was sixteen.
And the future we had spent years imagining disappeared with him.
After the funeral, Emma became quieter.
She still attended school. She still earned good grades. She still helped me around the house.
But the laughter that once filled our home became rare.
I often found her sitting on the floor of Felix’s bedroom, surrounded by his notebooks and old photographs. Sometimes she read his unfinished assignments. Sometimes she opened his wardrobe, touched the sleeves of his clothes, and closed the doors without taking anything out.
I didn’t force her to stop.
I was barely holding myself together.
