This one’s personal.
A journal.
I hesitate, thumb resting against the edge. A part of me wants to shut it, to respect the boundary. But the ache in my chest—the ache that’s never really dulled—won’t let me.
So, I turn the page.
“I don’t know how my little sis does it. How is she smiling so effortlessly? Smiling like she doesn’t feel the ache deep in her bones? Grams is doing what she can but she’s hurting too… I caught her crying when she was supposed to be at her cribbage game, she saidit’s alright to feel things… but I hate seeing her cry… or Mac.”
Mac.
Braden always called me that when he wasn’t trying to annoy me.
Now, it’s only the boys who do.
There’s something special to it, it carries weight, like a tether to who I was when he was still here. A kind of quiet belonging.
In the drift of everything I’ve lost, that familiarity grounds me. My throat tightens as I trace the line with my eyes.
“Mac doesn’t talk about it. Not really. But I see it—the way she disappears sometimes. I don’t think she even notices. I hate it. I hate that I don’t always know how to bring her back when she goes quiet like that. But I’m not going to give up on her, even if she is doing stupid, destructive shit.”
The words settle into my bones.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just quietly devastating.
I turn another page. And another. His thoughts bleed out between them—about music, about the dreams he was chasing, about missing Mom and Dad. About being scared. About not knowing how to say half the things he felt.
And then my heart jumps in my chest.
“Logan’s good for her. Even if she doesn’t see it yet.”
I still.
The next lines are scribbled like they were written in a hurry.
“He looks at her like every second is a promise he’s afraid he can’t keep.
Logan’s always been that way—with her, especially. All in, no brakes. He’s the best person I know, and if she ever gave him her heart, he’d love her fiercely, without question, without end. Because that’s just who he is when it comes to Mac.
I only made him promise not to touch her when we were kids because I was her big brother. That’s what big brothers do.
But if anyone ever deserved her—it’s him.”
A breath catches in my throat.
It’s not pain this time.
It’s something softer.
Something whole.
But as I turn the next page—
I stop.
There are tears in the center. Jagged edges poke out among the seams.
Pages are missing.
