Saoirse’s POV

  It was a regur day, the kind that blends into a hundred others. I was outside, pying in the garden with my best friend and neighbor, Cian, while my grandparents sat on the patio, sipping their evening tea.

  Then the phone rang.

  I didn’t think much of it at first—just another call, another conversation. But then, my grandfather’s hand trembled. His teacup slipped from his grasp, shattering against the stone floor. Beside him, my grandmother’s voice was urgent, asking what was wrong, but he couldn’t answer. He just sat there, frozen, his eyes unfocused as if his whole world had just colpsed.

  And in a way, it had.

  A few hours ter, I found out why.

  My parents were gone.

  A car accident. Just like that, they were taken from me. They had been returning from a charity ga, driving down the familiar roads toward home. Cian’s parents had attended the same event, trailing just behind them in another car. They saw the crash. They were injured too, but nothing compared to what happened to my parents.

  Nothing compared to what happened to me.

  The Weight of LossI don’t remember much about the days that followed. Only that I cried until my throat was raw, until my body ached, until there were no more tears left to shed.

  People came and went, offering condolences, murmuring soft words that meant nothing. I hated the way they looked at me—pity in their eyes, as if I had become something fragile, something broken beyond repair.

  I wasn’t sure they were wrong.

  The funeral was a blur of bck suits and hushed voices. I sat there, staring at the two closed caskets, waiting for something—anything—to make it feel real. But it never did.

  My grandparents tried to be strong for me, but I could see their grief in the way my grandmother clutched my hand too tightly, in the way my grandfather stared into the distance, lost in his own sorrow. They had lost a son. I had lost everything.

  A New RealityThe house didn’t feel like home anymore.

  The halls were too quiet, the ughter that once filled them now just a memory. Their absence was everywhere—in the untouched cups on the kitchen counter, in the coats still hanging by the door.

  I didn’t know how to exist in a world where they weren’t.

  I stopped talking. Stopped eating. Stopped caring.

  The only person who didn’t treat me like I was made of gss was Cian.

  He didn’t say things like “They’re in a better pce” or “It’ll get easier.” He just stayed.

  Sometimes, he sat beside me in silence, kicking a soccer ball against the garden wall while I curled up in the grass. Sometimes, he forced me to go outside, to at least pretend to be normal.

  And sometimes, when the nights were too long and the nightmares too heavy, he let me sneak into his room, where I’d lie on the floor beside his bed, staring at the ceiling until sleep finally came.

  He never told me to move on.

  He never left me alone.

  And for that, I would always be grateful.

  A New FamilyAfter my parents died, my life changed in more ways than I could understand.

  Cian’s parents—Eamon and Fiona Byrne—were always close to my family. Our houses stood side by side, connected by a shared garden where I had spent countless afternoons running barefoot through the grass.

  But after the accident, they became more than just neighbors.

  They became my family.

  I still lived with my grandparents, but Eamon and Fiona made it clear that I would always have a pce with them.

  And then, one day, without thinking, I called them Mom and Dad.

  Fiona hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe, whispering, “You are my girl. Always.”

  And just like that, I wasn’t alone anymore.