The pain of losing Trevor never fully healed, but Ayla kept moving forward.
Life didn't stop, and neither could she.
Even though her cousin was gone, she couldn't turn her back on the people who had loved him the most—his parents. They had always been kind to her, even when the rest of the family had treated her and her mother like they didn't exist.
Trevor had been more of a brother to her than her real one ever was. He never pitied her, never made her feel like she was less. He was one of the few people who saw her—not as a broken girl, but as Ayla his baby sister.
So when he died, she owed it to him to take care of his parents.
She visited them when they needed her. She helped them in ways she could—grocery shopping, hospital visits, taking care of the house when they were too tired.
She did what a daughter would do, even if she wasn't their daughter.
But life had never been kind to her, and it didn't stop hurting her now.
Maybe God wanted her to suffer more.
Maybe she was meant to see just how much a person could lose before they completely shattered.
Because just when she thought she had faced the worst—she lost her mother too.
.....
Her mother had always been a fighter.
A woman who had endured an abusive marriage, who had left with nothing but her dignity, who had built a life without accepting a single penny from the people who had turned their backs on her.
She had spent the last three years traveling, seeing the world—always moving, always going somewhere.
Ayla had thought she was finally free.
But she was wrong.
Her mother had been hiding something.
Lung cancer.
By the time Ayla found out, it was too late.
The final stage. No treatments left. No second chances.
She could only watch as the strongest woman she had ever known slowly slipped away.
At the age of twenty-five, Ayla lost the only person in the world who had loved her unconditionally.
And this time, she truly felt what it meant to be alone.
The funeral was a blur.
People came and went. Some offered condolences. Some cried. Some whispered in hushed voices about how young her mother was, how cruel life was, how unfair it was.
Ayla barely heard any of it.
She just stood there, staring at the coffin, feeling nothing.
No pain.
No sadness.
No anger.
Just emptiness.
It was too much.
Too much loss. Too much grief. Too much of a burden to carry on her own.
But she didn't cry.
She didn't scream or break down.
She didn't cling to the coffin, begging for one more moment, one more day, one more chance.
She just stood there, silent, expressionless, as if she wasn't really there at all.
And that scared the people around her.
It scared Trevor's parents, who had already lost their only son.
It scared Amy, who had been her closest friend for years.
It scared the few people who still cared about her, because they knew— Ayla wasn't strong to begin with__Ayla wasn't strong anymore.
She had nothing left to hold on to.
Nothing left to fight for.
Nothing left to love.
.......
Trevor's parents didn't ask her to come home with them.
They forced her.
They didn't let her stay in that empty apartment, surrounded by memories that would slowly suffocate her.
They didn't give her the choice to waste away in her grief, pretending to be fine while slowly losing herself.
They had already lost one child. They weren't going to lose another.
For months, they took care of her.
They watched over her, making sure she ate—even when she didn't want to.
They spoke to her, even when she didn't respond.
They sat with her in silence, even when she pretended not to notice.
They never left her alone, no matter how much she tried to push them away.
They didn't try to replace her mother.
They didn't try to fill the void in her heart.
But they stayed.
And slowly—painfully—they helped her heal.
For the first time in a long time, Ayla realized something.
Maybe, just maybe—she wasn't as alone as she thought.