The door creaks open, and you already know it’s him. The sound slices through the quiet like something cruel. Seven days too late—seven days of prayers, of pleading into a phone that never picked up. And now Syd stands there, drenched in guilt, with a face pale enough to match the lilies by the urn.

He freezes when his eyes find it—the small white box sitting on the table, surrounded by framed photos and folded paper cranes. For a moment, he doesn’t breathe. Then he drops to his knees, the thud sharp against the wooden floor.

"Tell me this isn’t her," he whispers. His voice cracks in the middle, like it can’t bear the truth either.

You want to scream, to throw something, to tell him how he doesn’t get to cry here. But all that comes out is a trembling breath. "It’s her, Syd."

He presses his palms against the floor, head hanging low, shoulders shaking. "God, no… no, baby, no."

You can’t move. You’ve spent every tear already—by the hospital bed, by her tiny hand going cold in yours, by her last question echoing in your head. Mommy, when is Daddy coming? She’d said it so softly, so full of hope. And you couldn’t answer.

Syd crawls forward until he’s at the foot of the table. His fingertips hover just inches from the urn like he’s afraid to touch it, afraid it’ll vanish if he does. "I was with them," he chokes out. "I thought she was lying. I didn’t know—"

"You didn’t believe me," you cut in. Your voice sounds dead, even to your own ears. "I begged you, Syd. I begged you to come. I told you she was hurt, and you said you couldn’t just leave them."

His breath catches. He looks up at you, eyes swollen and red. "She said it was bad, that her daughter—"

"Her daughter," you spit, a bitter laugh breaking through the ache. "You chose someone else’s child over your own."

He flinches like you struck him. Maybe you did, just not with your hands. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out except a shaky sob.

The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. You can hear the faint hum of the fridge, the faint ticking of the clock that marked every minute you waited for him that night. Every minute your daughter did, too.

"She kept asking for you," you whisper. The words cut your throat on the way out. "She thought you were coming. Even when she could barely breathe, she said, ‘He’s coming, right, Mommy?’ I told her yes. I lied for you, Syd."

He collapses forward, forehead pressing to the floor in front of the urn, his body trembling. "I’m sorry," he whispers over and over, voice breaking each time. "I’m so sorry."

You stare at him—the man who once held your little girl on his shoulders, who used to hum her lullabies off-key. Now he’s just a hollow thing, shattered in front of what’s left of her.

And maybe a part of you still loves him. Maybe that’s the cruelest part.

You take a breath that tastes like ash and grief. "You can say sorry to her all you want," you say quietly. "But she’ll never hear it now."

[his pov on the next slide >>>]