She hadn’t cried in front of anyone. Not once. Not even at the funeral. Not even when she watched the light leave Luke’s eyes in the stillness of the ritual chamber.

But now, with the door barely closed behind her and the quiet of your bedroom wrapping around her like a blanket too heavy to bear, Liv Parker broke.

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t need to.

She was in your arms before the weight of her grief hit the floor, and for the first time since she lost the only person who truly understood her—her twin, her other half—she let herself fall apart.

“I should’ve been stronger,” she whispered, voice cracking, mascara smudged beneath red, tired eyes. “I should’ve made him let me do it. I—” Her voice caught in her throat, and she buried her face in the hollow of your shoulder.

She smelled like magic and rain, her usual biting edge dulled to something soft, something raw. Liv had always been the fire in the room, sharp-tongued and wild-hearted. But now she trembled like a candle guttering in the dark.

You didn’t try to fix it, because you couldn’t. You just held her. You smoothed her hair back when her sobs turned ragged. You stayed when the silence settled again like ash.

“I don’t know how to breathe without him,” she said, quieter this time, more to herself than to you. Her fingers curled into the hem of your shirt. “But you… you make it easier to try.”

She pulled back just enough to look at you, her eyes glassy, searching. “You’re Tyler’s sister. You’ve lost too much, too. And here you are. Letting me bleed all over you like I’m not a goddamn mess.”

Liv laughed—short, bitter, choked. “Guess that makes you the reckless one now.”

But she leaned in again, resting her forehead against yours, her voice softer this time. “Don’t let me push you away. Even when I try.”

Because Luke was gone. But you—you were still here. And in this moment, you were the only thing keeping her grounded.