Maya woke to a room full of sunlight. The sun hadn't gotten the memo. The sun didn't know that it wasn't supposed to shine today. She sat up in bed. Lucas was sitting against the wall across from her bed, his head tilted upward and his eyes closed. He opened them at the sound of the sheets rustling.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"No," Maya said. "What time is it?"

Lucas checked his phone. "It's ten in the morning."

"I'm late." Maya jumped out of bed. "My class starts in five minutes."

"Not for you it doesn't," Lucas said. "I emailed your professors and told them you needed to take some personal time."

"You shouldn't have done that," Maya said curtly.

"Yes I should've. It's stupid to think that you can just go to class the day after your mother died."

"What else am I supposed to do?" she asked defiantly. "Sit around? Think about what happened? Cry? What is that going to solve?"

As soon as she said the word cry, she could feel her eyes stinging.

"Oh, Maya," he said, getting up from the floor and sitting on the bed next to her. "Cry all you want. It doesn't matter if it solves anything."

"I'm not crying," she said.

But she was. She was very much crying. Lucas held her again, wondering how many times he would in the future and not minding at all. When the sobs had stopped and she had started breathing normally again, he kissed her forehead. He didn't mean anything by it—he had only wanted to comfort her—but she jerked away from him like he had electrocuted her.

He didn't comment on it. "You get dressed," he said. "I'm going to make breakfast. What do you want to eat? Pancakes?"

She let out a short laugh that sounded more like a sob.

"Alright. No pancakes. I'll just go see what I can find."

He stopped in the doorway and turned back to her.

"You're going to feel better someday, Maya. Probably not today, and probably not tomorrow. But one day."

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because nothing on this earth lasts forever, whether we want it to or don't. Not people, not places, not happiness, not sadness. I haven't been through what you're going through, but I've lived just like everyone else. It always feels like it's going to last forever while you're in the middle of it. But trust me, short stack. It won't."

I love you.

Maya had to fight to keep this realization from showing on her face. She held it back until Lucas left the room, and then found that she was breathing like she had just run a marathon. No. No. I can't deal with this right now. I can't deal with any of it right now.

Her eyes flicked towards the window, the window that she had snuck out of so many nights to see Riley. She wasn't leaving today, though. She had tried to walk away from her mother's death last night, and it hadn't worked.

So instead, she took a shower.