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GRIEF IS A STRANGE THING. It's not really a feeling, but it is something one feels. In their bones, in their mind, in the aching at the bottom of their feet as they drag them through the trenches. In the darkness of the world as it fades to black and blue. In the coolness of the night as the sun sets for its final time.
Everyone grieves in their own way. Some cry, some drink, some laugh, and some think that they don't, but they will.
Grief can be found in the deepest of depths and the highest of highs. The ground below the cliff and the stars above the sky. The stomach where the heart drops and the clouds where the mind flees.
But how can one grieve the loss of something they never had in the first place? The absence of something present? The presence of something absent? The lack of something empty? The nothingness of everything and the whole of nothing?
How can one grieve what they don't have? How can one feel grief for the future of a memory... For the past of what's to come?
How can Valentina feel grief for the best friend she lost, when maybe he never left?
"Good grief."
Steve had no reaction to the words of the girl sitting wide-eyed in his passenger seat. Or if he did, he didn't show it, and she didn't notice it.
His dark eyes remained locked on the blurring road ahead of them, passing with the acceleration of his vehicle, whose speed had caused the girl's words to come out in the first place.
Her body leaned partially against the backrest of her seat and halfway onto the door, diagonal toward the center console between them, due to the lack of effort put in by the boy when he carelessly tossed her into the seat only minutes ago.
She'd barely moved since then, caught in a trance of confusion and questions that could only be answered by the driver, who was choosing to remain silent after his outburst with his friend.
Hearing the sound of his black tires cruising down the street, molecular spikes pricked at the skin of the blonde as she realized just how fast they were really going, and it didn't look like they were slowing down any time soon.
She quickly grasped at the seat belt on her right to strap it across her body, fumbling with the buckle the first few tries as her hands shook with fear until, finally, the satisfying click! echoed in the silence of the car.
Looking back up to the boy driving next to her, Valentina caught sight of the strain in his muscles. His jaw tensed each time his teeth grinded harshly against each other and his knuckles whitened each time his fingers clutched the wheel.
"Slow down," she muttered, her voice barely audible over the beating of her own heart slamming against the walls of her chest like it was fighting to escape. Steve ignored her request, again.
