One year. He counted the days since the moment he woke up in the hospital and slowly remembered how his and his sister's lives were completely ruined in a single night. They had nowhere to go, nowhere to run, they were there for each other and that's it, there was no escape.

The trauma consumed his mind, he had been undergoing psychological counseling since then, he couldn't be left without supervision and Kinsey wasn't well to do that for her older brother. So, you did.

It wasn't that you were part of the family before, but you knew their parents, they welcomed you as an older child when you moved in alone next door. You didn't know much about living alone, Cindy always showed up to help you—you felt like you should return the favor now and take care of them for her.

There was nothing simple about it, especially when you couldn't see through them. Kinsey pretended to be fine, but you could hear her crying and blaming herself for things that weren't her fault, just as Luke couldn't even talk about what happened without his entire body reacting negatively. It was tiring as hell, you were doing your best to make it to the end of the day.

“You have to eat.” He hadn't spoken for about two days, you thought it was because the memory of what happened seemed fresher when it had been exactly a year since it had happened. Luke was sitting in front of the window, looking at the house next door, the house he used to live in with his parents.

Your dog slipped between your legs, climbing into his lap the second it saw him. He didn't smile much, but when your dog was around, it seemed like the mood lightened a little. “He said he was proud of me.” Luke's words came out in a whisper, you barely heard them, so you sat on his bed to make sure you could hear the rest of it. “My dad... The last thing he said to me was that he was proud of me.”

His eyes were filled with pent up tears as he turned to look at you, holding back a cry he knew he couldn't hold back for long and it was worse when he actually thought about it. 365 days, all that time had already passed and even though the psychological support worked, there was still little time for him to really let it go.