POV: Jasmine
The cemetery was small. Cheap. Where people with no money ended up when dying was all they had left.
I stood between Leo and Liam at our mother's grave—a weathered headstone next to our father's, the plots side by side like some cosmic joke. Together in death the way they'd never been in life. The grass was patchy, struggling to grow in soil that seemed to reject even the most basic forms of life.
Carol Harlow. 1978-2024. Beloved Mother.
The word "beloved" felt like a lie carved in stone.
"I didn't know what to put," Leo said quietly, following my gaze. "The funeral home needed something. I just... picked words."
"It's fine." My voice came out flatter than I intended. "She would have liked it. The fantasy of being beloved."
Wind cut across the cemetery, sharp with the promise of rain. Liam stood a respectful distance behind us, close enough to be present but far enough to give the siblings space. The other brothers had offered to come, but I had asked for just Liam. Just family.
Leo shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against more than the cold. "I was angry at you," he said, the words tumbling out like they'd been dammed up for months. "For years, actually. For choosing drugs instead of us. For making us grow up too fast." He kicked at a clump of dead grass. "But I don't want to carry this anger anymore. It's heavy. And I'm tired of being tired."
I looked at the twin graves—two people who had created me and Leo, then systematically failed us in every way parents could fail. Two addicts who'd chosen needles over their children's hunger, highs over their children's safety, oblivion over their children's need to be loved.
Something shifted in my chest. A lock clicking open. A door swinging wide.
These weren't my parents. Not really. They were biological contributors who'd forfeited the title the first time they'd left me and Leo alone for three days with nothing but stale cereal and tap water. The first time CPS had knocked on the door. The first time I'd learned to forge my mother's signature on school forms because Carol couldn't stay sober long enough to attend a parent-teacher conference.
My real family stood behind me. Liam, who held me when I broke. Asher, who showed love through action when words failed him. Finn, who made me laugh when the darkness pressed too close. And Leo—Leo who'd grown up beside me in that particular hell and somehow emerged as something real, something worth fighting for.
"I forgive you," I said to the headstone. The words felt strange in my mouth, foreign and sharp-edged. "Not because you deserve it. You don't. You never did a single thing to earn forgiveness." I swallowed hard. "But because I deserve peace. I deserve to stop carrying your failures like they're mine to fix."
The wind picked up, scattering dead leaves across the cheap plots.
"I forgive you," Leo echoed, his voice cracking on the second word. "For the birthdays you forgot. For the Christmas you pawned our presents for drug money. For making Jasmine raise me when she was just a kid herself." He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve. "I forgive you because I'm done letting you take up space in my head."
We stood there longer than either of us had planned. Not crying—not in the traditional sense. Not grieving the way movies showed grief, with dramatic collapses and wailing. Just witnessing. Bearing testimony to the end of something that should have ended years ago, when two parents looked at their children and chose poison instead.
"She wasn't all bad," Leo said finally, breaking the heavy silence. "I remember once, before everything got really dark, she made us pancakes shaped like animals. Stayed sober long enough to take us to the zoo." He laughed, but it sounded hollow. "I was maybe five. You were eight. She held my hand the whole time so I wouldn't get lost."
"Maybe." I reached over and took his hand now, squeezing tight. "Maybe there were moments. But moments don't make a mother, Leo. Showing up does. Choosing your kids over your addiction does. She couldn't do that. Neither of them could."
"I know." He squeezed back. "I just... I needed there to be something. Some small piece worth remembering."
"Then remember the pancakes." My voice softened. "Remember the zoo. Let that be enough, and let the rest go."
We turned away from the graves together, walking slowly across the uneven ground toward where Liam waited by the car. The sky had darkened, clouds rolling in thick and gray, threatening to break at any moment.
Leo cleared his throat halfway across the cemetery, the sound awkward and uncertain. "I've been thinking," he started, then stopped. Started again. "The farm's been good for me. Getting clean, finding myself, all that stuff. But I'm thinking about coming back to the city." He glanced at me sideways. "If that's okay. If you'd want me around."
Hope sparked in my chest, bright and unexpected. My baby brother, coming home. After months of silence, months of distance, months of wondering if I'd lost him forever—
The hope lasted exactly three seconds.
Then my stomach lurched violently, a wave of nausea slamming into me with zero warning. I barely made it to a nearby trash can before everything came up—what little breakfast I'd managed to choke down, bile, nothing. I vomited until there was nothing left, my body heaving with the force of it, hands gripping the rusted metal rim for support.
"Jesus, Jas!" Leo was at my side instantly, one hand on my back, panic threading through his voice. "What the hell?"
Liam appeared on my other side, steadying me with gentle hands. "Here, drink this." He pressed a water bottle into my shaking fingers. "Small sips. Slow."
I rinsed my mouth, spat, tried to catch my breath. The nausea was already receding, leaving behind that particular exhausted emptiness I'd been feeling for weeks now. Morning sickness, my brain supplied. Except it wasn't just mornings anymore.
Leo and Liam exchanged looks over my bent head—the kind of look that said they were having an entire conversation without words.