I hadn’t heard the front door.
Maybe that’s what happens when you sit too long in old memories. You forget the world still moves, that footsteps can echo through time, up staircases, across wooden floors, into the room where everything you thought you buried still lives.
I turned when I felt him standing in the doorway.
“You came,” I said softly.
Kian nodded.
“I almost didn’t.”
My room hadn’t changed much — same pale blue walls, bookshelves cluttered with novels I hadn’t touched in years, the photo of her and me taped beside the mirror. My childhood bed looked small with Kian standing next to it. He didn’t sit until I gave a nod, and even then, he lowered himself like the bed might shatter.
“You okay?” I asked, voice barely more than a breath.
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“No.”
We sat in silence. Not the heavy, awkward kind. The kind that buzzed with things we were afraid to say out loud.
“I used to come here,” Kian said suddenly.
“Not inside. Just outside your window. After she passed. I don’t even know why. Maybe I hoped she’d come back and punch me in the face.”
I let out a breath that was almost a ugh.
“She might’ve.”
Kian looked down at his hands.
“She was good. Too good. And I didn’t know how to handle that.”
“You hurt her.”
“I know.”
He paused, then added,
““I never meant to hurt her. You see. Back then, I was part of a gang. One Easter… we were hunted. People like us don’t just disappear without a trace, and I knew I had to get out. So, I fled. Came here, hoping it would all be different. When I got here, I fell in with the wrong crowd again. I didn’t know how to be anything else. The anger, the chaos, it was what I knew. But there were moments, moments where I thought maybe I could break free, that maybe things could change. But it was hard, you know? After my parents’ divorce, after my mother got a new boyfriend, it felt like everything was falling apart. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was just so… angry. I was convinced that numbing the pain meant taking it out on others. That’s what they told me. So when we were paired together for that project… I saw your sister, and she was brilliant. So fucking brilliant, and I was just… I bmed her for hogging all the work when really, she didn’t. It was all in my head. I wanted to tear her down, to make her feel the way I did. I didn’t know how else to handle it. It felt good, in the moment, to have control. To have someone to bme for everything I was feeling. But deep down, I hated myself for it. And it didn’t st. None of it sted. I wanted to apologize, but it felt like the damage was already done. I thought… maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she wouldn’t forgive me. And when I saw her so much ter, when it was too te, I knew. I knew I had messed up, and all I could do was regret. But I didn’t know how to make it right. I never meant to hurt her. And I never meant to hurt you. I was just… lost. But I’m not lost anymore. So… you see? I wasn’t shing out because of her—I was shing out because I didn’t know what to do with all the pain inside me.”
“Did she know?”
“I think she figured it out near the end. That’s why she stopped fighting back. She was trying to show me how to stop.”
I swallowed hard.
“She didn’t tell me any of that.”
“She didn’t want to worry you.”
I blinked away a sting in my eyes.
“Why now? Why tell me this tonight?”
He leaned back on his hands, gaze flicking toward the ceiling.
“Because it’s Easter. And I finally have something I think belongs to you.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
He stood slowly, reached into his pocket, and pced something on the bed beside me.
It was a pink pstic egg. Faded from time. The kind we used to find in our backyard when we were little. My fingers froze over it.
“That’s hers,” I said.
He nodded.
“She had it the st time I saw her.”
I picked it up, hands trembling.
“Why didn’t you give it to me sooner?”
“Because I didn’t think I deserved to. Until now.”
I set the egg down, staring at it like it might open itself. I couldn’t touch the csp. Not yet.
When I looked back at him, something shifted. The silence turned warm. His eyes weren’t full of shame anymore — just truth. And when I reached for his hand, he didn’t pull away.
“I hated you,” I whispered.
“For a long time.”
“I hated myself too.”
“But I also wondered... if that hate was covering something else.”
He looked up at me.
“Like what?”
“Like maybe I didn’t want to hate you forever.”
The words hung there, uncertain. But then he moved closer. Just an inch. And another.
I leaned in, my forehead resting against his. My voice was barely audible.
“Is this okay?”
He nodded.
“Only if it means something.”
“It does,” I breathed.
“It always did.”
And then we kissed.
Slow. Not desperate, not needy. Just real. His lips were warm and honest. Mine trembled with every memory I hadn’t spoken aloud. I hadn’t kissed anyone since she died. I hadn’t wanted to.
But this wasn’t about forgetting. It was about remembering... differently.
His jacket slipped off first. Then mine. Then yers between us, peeled gently, without rush. There was no fire, no storm. Just two broken things finding warmth in the wreckage.
When we finally y together, bare beneath the old quilt I never threw away, I didn’t feel afraid. I felt seen.
His hands moved like he was still asking questions. My answers came in touch — soft, tentative, certain.
When it was over, we didn’t rush to move. He curled behind me, arm draped across my waist like a promise. Our skin touched, but so did something deeper.
“You were right,” I said quietly.
“This doesn’t feel like Easter.”
He pressed his lips to my shoulder.
“Feels more like Valentine’s Day.”
I smiled, small and sad.
“Then why am I crying?”
“Because healing hurts.”
“Easter was her favorite time of the year. ”
We sat up together, wrapped in the quilt, still close. He reached beside me, took the egg in his hands, and gently clicked it open.
Inside was a folded note. Her handwriting — the way she always looped her Y’s like hearts.
I read aloud.
If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t get to say it in person. That’s okay. I trust you’ll know what I mean.
Love is strange. Sometimes it comes in ugly shapes. Sometimes it comes from broken people. But it’s still love.
He hurt me, yes. But I saw something in him no one else did. And maybe... maybe I hurt him too. With my silence. With my smiles.
To my sister — don’t carry my pain. Let it go. Live your life. Fall in love.
To him — if she forgives you, start over. For both of us. Don’t waste this second chance.
And when you kiss her… make it count.
Happy Easter, from wherever I am.
Love always wins.
I pressed the note to my chest, tears sliding freely now.
He cupped my face.
“We can’t change the past.”
“But we can make the future mean something.”
He kissed me again — our second kiss. But our first real one.
And somewhere deep inside the quiet of the house, I swear I heard her ugh.
