The first time he opened his eyes, he didn’t ask for me or what had happened. He only whispered, “Lily?” and then fell apart so violently, it broke something in me that hasn’t healed since.
Daniel — somehow — survived.
Daniel came home a few days ago, still limping, bruised, stitched up, wrapped in bandages, and still barely speaking. He moved around as if he were waiting for someone to take him back to the hospital and finish the job.
My husband still blamed himself for taking that road, for not seeing the truck soon enough, and for being the one who made it out alive.
Honestly, the house no longer felt like home. It’s a shell of what it used to be and is almost always silent.
Honestly, the house no longer
felt like home.
Lily’s room was exactly as she had left it. Her art supplies and pencils were scattered across her desk, her sunflower sketch half-colored. Her toys still lay across the floor, and her pink lamp was still plugged in beside her bed.
The bracelet she made for me lay half-finished on her nightstand. The fairy lights still twinkled along the window at night. Sometimes I found myself just walking past her door and felt like a ghost honte drifting through someone else’s life.
Lily’s room
was exactly as
she had left it.
I would stare at her room, as if waiting for her to pop out and say, “Boo!” She never does.
