Page 13 of June
It was almost sunset when I veered off the main road that leads to my Dad's house. The cemetery gates stood open, the wind fluttering through the trees like whispers.
I hadn't been here in months. Maybe longer. But I went straight to her. Like I always did.
Her headstone was clean, fresh flowers resting in the vase. Someone had been visiting. My dad, probably.
"Hi, Mom," I whispered, tracing the grooves of her name like they could bring her back.
"I should've come sooner. I kept thinking I'd be okay, that I could handle everything. That if I just kept moving, I wouldn't fall apart." A shaky breath left my lips. "But I'm falling apart now."
I knelt down, fingers curling into the grass at the base of the headstone.
"I miss you so much it aches. Some days I wake up and for half a second I forget you're gone... and then I remember, and it feels like losing you all over again."
My voice cracked. "I'd give anything to hear you call me sunshine again. To roll your eyes at my messes, to laugh at the way I cry during dance movies. I'd give anything to lay my head in your lap and feel your fingers in my hair." My chest clenched like it couldn't hold the pain anymore. "I thought I was loved. I really believed he loved me. And now it's all just—gone. Like I was the only one who meant it. And I don't know how to come back from that."
A breeze whispered past, but there was no comfort in it. Just emptiness. Just her absence.
"I'm tired, Mom. So, so tired. I'm tired of being the strong one. Of smiling when it hurts. I just wanted someone to choose me. The way I would've chosen them every single time."
I closed my eyes and let the tears fall.
And then—
"I'm not her," a voice said gently behind me. "I'll never be her. But if you need someone to hold you while the world breaks... I'm here, JuneBug."
I turned around, and there he was—my dad, standing just a few feet away, his eyes wet and arms open like a harbor in a storm, and I didn't even think.
I ran. I ran like I used to when I scraped my knees and the world felt too big. I ran straight into his chest, and he caught me like he always had—like he always would.
I sobbed. Loud, ugly, heartbroken sobs that soaked through his shirt, and he held me like he'd hold me forever.
He didn't try to hush me. He didn't rush me. He just pressed his cheek to the top of my head and whispered, "You don't have to be okay. Not here. Not with me."
I clutched him tighter, burying myself in the one place I still felt safe.
"I don't know how to do this anymore," I said between breaths. "I feel like I'm disappearing."
"You're still here," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "And as long as I'm breathing, you will never be alone. I'm not your mom, June... but I love you with everything I've got for the both of us."
I believed him because no matter how lost I was, my dad had always been the way back.
Chapter Eight: The Bubble
June.
June, a name like sunlight spilling across the horizon, soft yet unwavering, like the warmth of a summer morning that stretches on forever. It carries the promise of endless days, of golden hours where everything seems possible, where time slows just enough to let you breathe it all in. It is a season of beginnings, of fresh starts, like a canvas yet to be touched, a story waiting to unfold. I used to think no name could hold so much meaning. But hers did. It held every soft, beautiful thing in the world.
June. Her name holds the warmth of summer nights and the stillness of morning fog, like someone who has always been thesun in someone else's world. And she was my sunshine. Not just in the way she smiled, but in how she lit up every corner of my life that had been dim before her. I love her so much. God, I love her. I made sure she knew—flowers for no reason, forehead kisses every morning, playlists she never asked for but always kept, a proposal that took me months to plan, flying in her friends from all over just to see her eyes light up. I built her a studio with my own hands—or at least, my own wallet. Loans. So many loans. Debt wrapped in the prettiest bow of love.
I never told her.
My mother warned me. My grandmother sat me down with those wise eyes and told me, "Don't keep finances a secret, baby. Not from your wife. Not from June." But I wanted to be like my father. The man of the house. The protector. The provider. I wanted her to feel safe, to believe we were building something solid. And I thought I could handle it. All of it.
Until I couldn't.
A few weeks before the wedding, I was drowning. The stress was relentless. My chest always tight. I couldn't sleep. Couldn't think. I was a man unraveling, and I didn't want her to see. Then Selene messaged me.
It was like a match flicked to the past. Suddenly I was seventeen again.
