He stands at the edge of the service,
back straight, jaw locked,
like the casket might shatter
if he doesn’t hold the world together.
They all look at him—
Hen, Chim, Athena, May—
like he’s the steady one now.
The strong one.
The one Bobby asked to stay standing.
And so he does.
But inside?
He’s already collapsed.
They buried Bobby today.
Under a sky that didn’t know
how to be solemn,
under the indifferent warmth of a sun
that had no right to shine.
They buried his father.
And Buck didn’t cry.
Because Bobby’s last words
—spoken in breathless panic,
blood painting his lips like a blessing—
were:
“You’ve got to be there. For them.”
So Buck is.
He’s there.
He helps Athena to her seat,
his hand gentle on her back
even though his fingers still tremble
with the phantom weight of Bobby’s body.
He hugs May with a smile
that cracks at the edges
like porcelain.
He thanks the priest.
He signs the guest book.
He listens.
But he doesn’t speak.
Because if he speaks,
he might scream.
And no one wants that.
No one wants to see
that he’s drowning.
No one knows
that every second he’s not sobbing
is a second spent biting it back.
Because he saw Bobby’s last look.
And it haunts him.
That flicker of terror.
That guilt—like Bobby knew
he was leaving too much behind.
That love,
radiant and aching,
shoved into a single second
as if he could give Buck
everything he ever meant
with one look.
He can’t stop seeing it.
Not even when he closes his eyes.
Especially not then.
They buried Bobby far from here.
With his first wife.
His first children.
The ones he lost in fire and smoke
and years of mourning.
And Buck understands.
He does.
But God, he’s angry.
So angry.
Because it feels like they took Bobby
from them—
from the family he chose,
from the people still breathing.
They put him in the ground
hours away,
beneath a stone carved with names
Buck never got to speak aloud.
And now, when he wants to visit,
he has to ask for time off.
He has to drive there like a stranger.
He has to sit at a grave
that doesn’t say Dad.
And that feels like
another kind of loss.
The kind that doesn’t
make it into the eulogies.
The kind no one gives him
permission to grieve.
So Buck is strong.
He jokes at the wake.
He passes the drinks.
He tells Chim it’s okay to cry.
He hugs Hen like it’s all he has.
But at night?
At night he is nothing but broken.
He goes home,
sits on the edge of his bed,
and pulls off his shoes
with shaking hands
like they weigh a thousand pounds.
And then?
Then he breaks.
Not a gentle, poetic breaking.
Not pretty.
Not quiet.
He breaks like glass hitting pavement.
Like bone through skin.
Like fire through wood.
He sobs so hard his chest cramps,
so hard his voice gives out,
so hard he claws at his sheets
because it hurts too much to stay still.
He wants to scream.
But all that comes out
is Bobby’s name.
And no one hears it.
Because Buck makes sure of that.
He breaks in private.
Because he has to be strong in public.
He is the strong one.
The steady one.
The one left behind
to carry the weight
of someone else’s legacy.
But every night,
he spills into pieces so sharp
he isn’t sure he’ll ever
fit back together again.
And in the dark,
when the tears finally stop,
and there’s nothing left but the hollow—
he whispers:
“You said I had to be there for everyone…
but who’s here for me?”
And silence answers.
The kind of silence
that used to be filled
with a voice that grounded him.
A hand on his shoulder.
A second chance.
And now there’s nothing.
Just a bed.
A body.
A boy pretending to be a man
because his father
asked him to be.
