Between Bruises & Blooms

I have cried
over people
who never existed.

Real tears.

The ugly kind.

The kind
where I have to pause
the audiobook
because I cannot hear
over my own breathing.

Danika died
and somehow
Bryce was not
the only one
left standing
in the wreckage.

Liam fell
and I stared
at words on a page
like refusing
to turn it
might change
what happened.

Sam died
years before
I ever met him,

and still

when the story
finally placed
his grief
in my hands,

I carried it.

And Andarna—

God.

She didn't even die.

She just left.

Which somehow
found an entirely
different wound
to press against.

That is the strange thing
about stories.

My brain knows
none of them
were ever here.

There was no funeral.

No body.

No world
where I could have
saved them.

But my heart
has never cared much
for technicalities.

I knew them.

That was enough.

I knew their jokes.

Their loyalty.

Their fear.

The people
they would have died for—

and sometimes did.

I watched them
become home
to someone,

and then watched
the story
take that home away.

So yes,

I have grieved
people
who never breathed.

I have missed
places
that were never built.

I have carried
fictional ghosts
into very real mornings.

Maybe that sounds
ridiculous
to someone
who has never
needed books
the way I have.

But when you spend
half the night
living somewhere else,

the people there
start feeling
a little less imaginary.

And losing them

still feels
like losing.