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Tessa
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Grief. Feels like emptiness in your heart, a shear of nothingness that somehow takes over and holds your soul and threatens to kill you entirely. It gives you this heavy feeling that’s like the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders and there is nothing you can do to get out from under it. It's like this hole in your heart that is the shape of the one you lost and that makes you feel the need to wipe away any non-existent tears that you want to form but can’t.

"Do you judge me?" I turned to Tritan with a raised eyebrow. We were sitting by Cassia's grave, the place that I hadn't been able to leave for three days straight. I couldn't bring myself to walk away from her. I haven't seen Sacha and Lily since that day, they seemed to be giving me space I so desperately needed.

Tritan look puzzled. "Why would I judge you?" After everything that happened, he stayed behind. If it wasn't for Tritan, I would've neglected myself. He made sure I ate and got enough sleep.

I shrugged. "After everything I've done, I haven't really been the best of people."

He gazed at me through his brown eyes. I always thought his eyes seen more to me than I would've liked. "You did some bad stuff. But that shouldn't define you."

I groaned and pulled my knees up to my chest. "I should have listened to you."

The guilt was like gasoline in my guts. My insides died slowly in the toxicity, needing no more than a spark to set it ablaze. The fire burnt me out so badly there was nothing left but a shell, an outline of a person.

"Stop," Tritan grumbled angrily. "You need to stop blaming yourself for Cassia's death."

Tears brimmed in my eyes but I blinked them away. My throat constricted, I took a deep breath to control myself. I have learned to control the urge to cry every time I heard Cassia's name. "I'm not blaming myself."

Tritan gripped my chin and forced me to look up at him. "I can see it in your eyes. The guilt. It's eating you up alive. You need to stop. It wasn't your fault."

I pulled my chin out of his grasp and frowned. "You don't understand. It was my fault, Tritan. It was me. I did it."

"That wasn't you. It was that thing inside you. That thing that has no mercy for the living."

"I let her take control, Tritan," I said with shame.

He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Cassia wouldn't have wanted you to blame yourself."

"You don't know what she would've wanted."

"Do you think I don't know?" Tritan scoffed. "When you left, I had to look after her. She would cry herself to sleep. Cassia was so miserable, but do you know what got her through the day?" He asked rhetorically. "She knew that wherever you were, you were happier without her."

I ran my hands through my hair, a sigh leaving my mouth. My lip trembled and I covered my face to hide the tears.

"I'm not going to watch you push the people who care about you away."

"Nobody cares about me," I spat.

He scoffed. "Reign and Sacha care about you. Reign could feel your anger so she came to stop you but she was too late. It was her scream. She was telling you to stop. But you didn't. Reign cares about you. Sacha sure as hell cares. They look at you like you're part of their family. They accept you for who you are." He paused. "I'm not going to watch you throw that away."

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