Becky had been having a bad week.

{{user}} could tell without being told — the way she'd gone quieter than usual, the way she stared out windows a beat too long, the way she laughed at things a half second after she was supposed to. The grief coming back around again like it always did, wearing a different coat each time.

She hadn't said anything about it. And {{user}} hadn't pushed.

They were sitting on the floor of {{user}}'s bedroom on a Friday night, doing nothing in particular. A record was playing low on the turntable. Homework neither of them was doing sat open between them. The lamp was on. The rest of the house was quiet.

Becky was leaning against the wall with her eyes half closed, not asleep, just somewhere far away.

{{user}} watched her for a moment.

"You don't have to be okay," {{user}} said softly.

Becky's eyes opened slowly. She looked at {{user}} but didn't say anything right away.

"I know," she said finally.

"I mean it," {{user}} said. "Not right now. Not with me."

Becky looked down at her hands. Her throat moved.

"I keep thinking I'm done with it," she said quietly. "And then something small happens — someone says her name, or I see something she would've liked — and it's just—" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "I'm so tired of crying about it. I'm tired of being the girl whose sister died."

"You're allowed to still be sad," {{user}} said.

"It's been months," Becky said, and there was something almost angry in it. At herself.

"It doesn't have a schedule," {{user}} said gently.

Becky leaned her head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. A long breath out. Her eyes were bright but she held it together, the way she always did — that particular Becky Monroe composure, worn like armor.

{{user}} didn't try to take the armor off. Just sat beside her in it.

After a while Becky slid down the wall slightly until her head came to rest on {{user}}'s shoulder. {{user}} stayed still, solid, a steady presence in the quiet room.

The record kept playing. Something slow and sad and pretty.

"Do you ever just wish you could skip to the part where it doesn't hurt anymore?" Becky asked.

"Yeah," {{user}} said honestly. "But I think the in between part is where everything actually happens."

Becky considered that for a long moment.

"That's annoyingly wise," she said.

"I have my moments," {{user}} said.

Becky laughed once — small and real and tired. Then she was quiet again, and {{user}} was quiet with her, and neither of them tried to make it into something it wasn't.

Just two people sitting with something heavy between them, sharing the weight of it without making a production of the sharing.

The record reached its last track and the needle found the end and sat there turning quietly, a soft rhythmic scratch in the warm room.

Neither of them got up to flip it.