“I used to think it would look different,” he said eventually.
His voice was quiet.Reflective.I glanced at him then, just briefly.
“What would?”I asked.
“This,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the house, the family, everything beyond the garden walls.“Us.”
I huffed out a faint breath.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said.“When we were kids… I thought we’d grow up, take over, build something bigger than what came before us.Stronger.Smarter.”A small pause.“Safer.”
The word didn’t move.It stayed where it landed, settling around us like something no one wanted to touch.
Atlas leaned back in his seat, but there was nothing relaxed about him.His fingers tapped once against the armrest before going still, like even that small movement was too painful.
“But life,” he said, his voice quiet, “has a habit of reminding you you’re not in control of everything.”
The tension sat in his shoulders, in the way his jaw locked and unlocked like he was chewing on words he’d never say out loud.
“Sometimes,” I said, softer now, “letting go of that control is the only thing that keeps you standing.”
Alessio wasn’t the loudest presence in the room when he’d been alive.He had this way about him.Quiet, but never weak.He listened more than he spoke, but when he did, people paid attention.Not because he demanded it—because they wanted to.
He noticed things no one else did.The small shifts.The cracks before they split open.He’d catch you on your worst day without making you feel like you were being seen too closely.
And then he’d hand you something simple.Grounding.
A drink.A distraction.A reason to breathe.With no expectations attached.
He just… stayed.Showed up.Over and over again, until one day, it felt like he’d always been there.Like we’d always needed him.
Atlas dragged a hand down his face, slow, like he was trying to pull himself back into the present.But the past had its hooks in him, same as it did in me.
“He shouldn’t have been there,” Atlas muttered, more to himself than to me.“That day—he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near it.”
I didn’t answer straight away.Because we’d had this conversation before.Different words.Same ending.
“If anyone should’ve taken it,” he went on, his voice tightening, “it should’ve been me.”
“There it is,” I said quietly.
His gaze snapped to mine.Sharp.Warning.But I didn’t look away.
“You don’t get to rewrite it,” I continued.“You don’t get to trade places with him just because it would make more sense in your head.”
“It does make sense.”
“No,” I said, firm.“It just hurts less that way.”
I saw the way his shoulders went rigid.The flicker of something raw that slipped through before he locked it down again.
“You barely made it as it is,” I added, quieter now.“Guilt will get you nowhere, Atlas.”
I let the silence sit for a moment before I spoke again.
“He made a choice,” I said.“That was who he was.You know that.”