Page 76 of What Remains

The answer never came, because grief offered none.

Her knees gave out.

Josie slid down the stall wall until she hit the straw-covered floor, cold seeping through her jeans as she folded inward. She didn’t try to stop it. She didn’t try to fix it. She wrapped her arms around her knees and made herself smaller as if size could somehow protect her from loss.

The sob that tore out of her was a raw, animal sound she didn’t try to restrain. Months of holding herself together.

For Layla.

For strangers who needed someone steady in a world that refused to steady, she had swallowed every scream. There was always another job, another responsibility lined up like an inescapable duty. Not here. Not anymore.

The grief arrived in violent waves—stealing her breath, forcing her down, consuming every thought until she could only speak in fragments.

“I miss you…”

Her voice fractured. “Oh God…I miss you so much.”

A tremor wracked her, as if her body had saved this collapse for the first safe room she could find.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

The words echoed off the wooden rafters, returning to her unchanged.

“I don’t know how to keep living without you.”

She buried her face deeper into her arms, shaking until the cold seemed to chase the heat from her.

“I hate this. I hate all of this. I hate that Layla won’t remember your laugh.”

Another sob ripped free, sharp enough to hurt.

“I hate that she won’t remember how much you loved her.”

The barn offered no answers. No voices from the rafters, no guidance from the beams. Only memories—too many, stacked like hay bales that kept falling when she tried to stand.

She cried until her chest burned and her throat ached, until the grief she’d clamped down poured out in great, shuddering waves that left her shaking and hollow.

For a long time, there was nothing in the world except heartbreak.

Then—

The old barn door creaked open behind her.

The familiar squeal cut through the silence. Josie didn’t lift her head. She didn’t need to. Somehow, before even turning, she already knew who had found her.

The barn door closed with a soft thud. Josie still didn’t look up. She couldn’t. If she met anyone’s eyes right now, she’d lose the last thread holding her together.

His boots crossed the packed dirt floor, unhurried, the sound muffled by scattered straw. He didn’t rush to her. He didn’t fill the silence with comforting words that would only ring hollow in a place like this.

He simply came.

When he reached her, Seth lowered himself onto the straw beside her, his back resting against the neighboring stall, close enough that she could sense his warmth without touching. For several long moments, neither of them spoke. Her sobs gradually softened into uneven breaths. In the quiet that followed, his presence was a solid, steady warmth beside her—patient in a way few people had ever been with her.

Without a word, Seth rested his forearm across his knee, then slowly turned his hand upward between them.

An invitation. Nothing more. No expectation, no pressure—just a quiet offer that said, you don’t have to carry this alone.

Through tear-blurred eyes, Josie stared at his open hand. She couldn’t have explained why she accepted it. Perhaps months of being everyone else’s support had finally hollowed her out. Perhaps she was simply too exhausted to stand upright any longer.