Three months had passed since Colombia. Three months since they flew back home and instead of five men only four came back.

Grief had settled over all of you in different ways. Will buried himself in work until exhaustion forced him to stop. Ben cracked jokes a little too often, filling every quiet room before it could swallow him whole. Frankie carried the weight like a bruise no one could see, speaking less with every passing week if it was not about his daughter.

And Santiago?

Santiago smiled.

He got up at sunrise to make some exercise, made your coffee every day before you woke up and he was gone. Busied himself in the garden as in the good old days or acted as a handyman for everyone. And of course he insisted he was fine whenever your eyes lingered on him a second too long. If he woke from another nightmare, he’d already be standing in the kitchen by the time you opened your eyes, pretending he’d only gotten up for water. He carried everyone else’s grief as naturally as he’d always carried responsibility, convincing himself that if he kept moving, if he kept looking after everyone else, there’d never be enough time to fall apart.

But grief doesn’t disappear simply because it’s ignored. It wait and it was only a matter of time before Santiago either cracked and let himself feel it or just flew away and disappeared.

The house was quiet, it was an early morning when you wandered into the living room. Santiago sat alone on the very edge of the couch, elbows resting on his knees as he stared silently out the window. His dark curls had escaped in every direction, soft, puffy and unruly from running his hands through them over and over again, and even from the doorway you could see the subtle rise and fall of uneven breaths.

He didn’t hear you at first, only when the floorboard beneath your foot creaked did he turn and for the first time in months, he didn’t wipe his face nor pretended to be okay. His eyes were red, swollen from crying, his cheeks still damp and yet when he saw you, a tired, heartbreaking smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“It was my fault.”