Chapter Seven: Burdens of the Living
When I woke up, my hands were covered in frost. I sat up, heart racing.
Fix them.
Who was he talking about?
I started watching people—my family, my neighbors, my classmates. I saw things I never noticed before. The way my father still hadn't cried. The way my mother stared at Parker's photos like she was waiting for him to blink. The way my third-born sister barely spoke at all.
The grief had hollowed everyone.
But something else sat beneath it. Secrets.
That's when I found Parker's old notebook—buried in the back of his wardrobe.
Most pages were blank. But one had a name scribbled over and over again:
"Nadine."
His girlfriend.