She couldn't accept it. She wouldn't accept it.

She felt like a complete monster for feeling nothing after the loss of her brother, while the rest of her family and friends where greiving. It was like a blak hole had consumed her heart and wrapped chains around it, stopping it from beating completely.

Mariana's phone was resting on teh armrest, buzzing every few seconds with non-stop messages from her friends, asking how she was and if she was okay. But she was fine. She hadn't cried, or screamed, or felt any kind or anger. She was in a universe with no stars. A fire with no light.

She was sitting in the chair doing absolutely nothing, while her distraught family planned her brothes funeral.

Her brother who would never graduate high school, or learn to drive, or start a family. Her brother who would never ask out that crush he'd wanted to be his valentine. Her brother who would never live to see his seventeenth birthday because some dispicable person stole the one thing he could never get back.

He would never get to laugh, scream, smile or cry ever again. He will forever be a high school student dreaming of the day he finds his purpose and his dreams come true. That day would never come.

Mariana realised it then: she'll never see him again, because in a few days, he'll be burried feet under the dirt. 

He'll never beg her to play video games while she's doing homework, barge into her bedroom then leave it open despite her protests, or steal her food from the fridge.

In that moment, her heart shattered, and her first real tear in weeks slipped from the corner of her eye. Suddenly, weeks of not feeling a single emotion fell away, leaving raw skin on her bones and the whole world of emotion sitting on her chest.

More tears fell, making her vision swim and fists clench around her jumper. She couldn't breath, she couldn't speak, she couldn't speak.

She gasped for air, desperately trying - and failing - to fill her lungs with oxygen. What good was oxygen anyway, when her brother was gone?

The sobs ripping from her throat didn't sound human, and she was loud enough that her mum rain in, eyes and mouth twisted in concern.

Usually, Mariana would find comfort in her other, bu tnow every word made her ears scream for mercy and every touch made her skin crawl with a deep sense of claustrophobia.

Now she felt everything

More than a teenager should ever have to feel.

She felt like she would never be the same again.