“You want to talk about it?” Kameron asks me. The early morning light shines in from the windows that Mya opened before she and Connor left. Her personal touch of making sure I know there will eventually be light again. I’ve screwed up. I’ve screwed up so bad that I don’t even want to think about it. My mom is gone. I will never physically see her walk on this earth again. I knew this was the end, yet I refused to believe it because it’s never been true any other time. I feel like I’ve failed her in ways. I don’t know why I feel like that, but I do. There wasn’t enough time to make her proud. There wasn’t enough time to express how much I love her. There just wasn’t enough time, period. I don’t know what else I could’ve done, but if there would’ve just been more time, this wouldn’t be hurting so freaking badly.

We rushed her to the ER at 1 am yesterday morning. I’ve never seen my dad cry until that moment. I’ve never seen my brother sober enough to deal with reality until that moment. I’ve never seen myself as weak until that moment. I have a high pain tolerance, but the pain that spread throughout my chest made me fumble. I puked my guts out on the hospital floor. I couldn’t stop. The pain was never-ending.

Over the past few weeks, my mom had been collecting fluid around her lungs from the cancer spreading to her organs. The doctors tried to drain it as best as they could, but they couldn’t do anything about the pressure of the tumor inside her head. Opening her skull meant instant death and none of us were content with that. The irony of this is my mom didn’t even die because of her cancer. She died from an aneurysm that developed from the vicious tumor. Fourteen years of fighting various cancers didn’t end the remarkable woman she was, an unexpected aneurysm did. We would’ve still had time. She would still be here. We could’ve kept experiencing life together. I could’ve had more time to figure out how to make her proud. I think I might be sick again.

“No,” I say, focusing on the combat before us to keep my insides from coming out. I don’t want to think about her. I don’t want to think about life. I don’t want to think about anything aside from how to move my fingers across the controller. I want to continue avoiding the pain for as long as I possibly can. I don’t ever want to feel like that again.

“Okay,” Kam says, switching his controller back on. His character reappears on the screen, and we start on a new mission. He doesn’t ask me any more questions. He doesn’t prompt me to talk. He stays beside me and reminds me what it’s like to be loved.