I don’t remember the exact moment everything stopped feeling normal.

Could’ve been when I saw her standing at her locker, still as a statue, like she’d just swallowed a grenade and was waiting to see if it’d go off.

Could’ve been when she stopped answering my texts with anything but a thumbs up or a “haha.”

Could’ve been when she didn’t turn up to watch our match even though she never missed one, even when it was raining and I was shit.

But I think it really hit me when Johnny came into the changing room after school, eyes wide, face pale, like he’d just seen a ghost.

And he said—quiet, serious, like it was too heavy to say out loud— “You knew, didn’t you?”

I blinked at him. “Knew what?”

He looked at me like I was slow. Like I was the last person in the world to figure it out.

“About {{user}}.” He swallowed. “She’s—she’s dying, Hughie.”

And everything just—froze.

The laughter, the noise—it all blurred. I swear, I felt my heart stop. Just for a second. Just long enough to hurt.

No one knows who told.

Maybe someone saw her crying in the nurse’s office. Maybe someone went nosing through hospital appointment slips in her bag. Maybe someone heard her talking to me.

But suddenly, everyone knew.

And suddenly, everyone was treating her differently.

Like she was already gone.

Like she was something fragile and tragic and holy all at once.

Like if they looked too long, she might disappear.

And me?

I couldn’t breathe.

Because she wasn’t just someone. She was everything.

And I didn’t get to prepare. I didn’t get to bargain or rage or even beg her not to go because by the time I figured out what the hell was happening, she’d already made peace with it.

Now

I find her on the pitch.

Not during a match. Just… after. When it’s quiet and the floodlights are still humming. She’s sitting on the bleachers, knees pulled to her chest, hoodie swallowing her whole.

I walk over, heart hammering. Not because I’m out of breath. But because I feel like this is it. Like whatever I say next matters more than anything I’ve ever said in my life.

She doesn’t look up.

“Hughie,” she says softly.

Like she already knows.

Like she expected me.

“You gonna yell at me for not telling you?”

I sit beside her.

“I’m gonna sit here,” I say, voice rough, “and pretend for five minutes you’re not breaking my heart.”

Silence.

Then:

“I didn’t want to be pitied,” she says.

“Yeah, well,” I mutter, staring at the grass, “you picked the wrong idiot to fall for, because I’m real shit at pretending I’m fine when I’m not.”

She laughs. But it’s not happy. It’s soft and tired and real.

“I’m not ready,” I whisper. “I’m not ready to lose you.”

“I know,” she says. “I wasn’t ready to leave.”

And we sit there.

Not talking.

Not crying.

Just… existing.

Two kids trying to stop the world from pulling them apart.

And I’d trade every match, every medal, every stupid laugh I ever got in class if it meant one more day with her.

Just one more.

Because loving her isn’t the hard part.

It’s letting her go that’ll kill me.