#Chapter 243 Grief

Grace The house was quiet, an oppressive silence that felt heavier than the weight of despair clinging to me. Charles had helped me inside, I didn't stay in the living room. He walked me back to my room and I lay there for hours. His worried gaze felt like a burden, but he left me alone. I'd listened to Eason, Ethan, and George leave. I heard Charles take Cecil and Richard downstairs. Alone with my thoughts, I lay across my bed. The report kept flashing through my mind. My vision blurred as tears welled up again, the stark reality of the words swimming before my eyes. Five years. Just five years... Cecil would barely be ten. Five years to live a life, to love, to make a difference. It felt like a sick joke, a cruel punishment for everything I'd done and hadn't done. My mind kept replaying Eason's words, his tear-streaked face etched in my memory. Was he telling the truth? Would I really have crumbled before Cecil's birthday if he hadn't intervened? The doubt gnawed at me. It was