Afterlight (Fanfiction) - EDITING ✓

chapter forty-five

Chloe

DEAR Diary,

It has been four three months since I left Stratford. Four months of silence, of unanswered questions, of replaying the same night over and over in my mind until it feels like I'm suffocating. The memory of Brad's last moments feels like a knife lodged in my chest, always there, always twisting. The grief doesn't get quieter; it just changes its shape, slipping into every corner of my being.

Three months of pain. Three months of emptiness. It's strange how a single moment can shatter your entire world, leaving behind a shell of who you used to be. Words fail to capture the storm inside me; the heartbreak, the anger, the guilt. They swirl together, heavy and suffocating, like I'm drowning in emotions I can't even name.

Nathan, Brad's best friend and the closest thing I have to family now, brought me this journal. "Write it down," he told me. "Sometimes putting it on paper helps." I don't know if it's helping, but I've been trying. Trying to piece myself together with ink and paper because saying it out loud feels impossible.

Nathan. He's been a big help in these dark months. There's something about him that reminds me of Brad, the quiet strength, the unwavering loyalty. He's humble and kind in a way that feels almost out of place in a world like ours. Maybe too kind. Sometimes I worry about him, about how much he gives without expecting anything in return. People like that... they end up hurt. People wreck you, disappoint you, and leave you with scars you never asked for.

But Nathan I could trust. He even celebrated my birthday with me, just the two of us, even though I didn't want to celebrate. He showed up with a lopsided cake and candles that wouldn't light properly, and for a moment, I almost smiled. It wasn't the kind of birthday I used to have, no laughter, no Brad teasing me about getting old, but it was something. It was enough. And for that, I'm grateful.

Still, gratitude doesn't fill the emptiness. It doesn't bring Brad back. I'm 19 years old now, and I feel like my life ended that night with his. I have no direction, no future. Just this aching void where my family used to be, where my dreams used to live. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever feel whole again. If this pain will ever loosen its grip on my heart. Right now, it feels impossible. Right now, it feels like the best I can do is survive another day, and another, and another.

That's all I can manage for now. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow, or maybe this journal will gather dust on my nightstand. I don't know. But for now, this is all I have to share.

* * *

As much as I wanted to escape the bad things in my life, I can't. They cling to me like shadows, following me everywhere I go, whispering in my ear when the nights are quiet and long. But today, I wanted—no, needed—to start fresh. To be someone new. Someone who wasn't weighed down by grief and guilt. Because today, I was going to reunite with Brad's gang members. All of them.

It was the only way forward, the only chance I had of surviving. They were my new family now, whether they knew it or not.

It's been said that "time heals all wounds." I didn't believe that. Time didn't heal anything for me—it just numbed the edges, smoothed the sharpest parts of the pain so I can pretend it doesn't cut as deep. But the wounds remained. They scar over, sure, but they never go away and the pain only hid beneath the surface, waiting. My faith in humanity had bled out alongside Brad's life that night.