"Some ghosts never leave, even if they were never meant to stay."

Every morning, Kate would look at herself in the mirror, searching for answers in her own reflection. But all she found were the same questions, haunting her like a mantra she couldn't escape:

"How am I supposed to live the rest of my life, holding onto him every single day?"

Fifteen years had passed since Jack's death, but his absence was still as sharp as broken glass. Learning to live without him had been a slow, agonizing journey—one she wasn't sure she'd ever truly completed. She had tried to move on, tried to piece together the fragments of a life without him.

For a while, she succeeded. She moved on. She found love again and allowed herself to feel happiness—real, immeasurable happiness. Jack would have wanted that for her. She knew it in her heart. Wherever he was, he would have never held her back. He would have wanted her to keep going, to smile, to find joy. And for a while, she did.

But that moment of happiness didn't last. Not enough to make her feel whole again anyway. She was still broken, still gathering the scattered pieces of herself. Of them.

"How am I supposed to live the rest of my life if I still dream of him every night?"

The dreams were the hardest. Some nights, she would wake from them breathless, her heart racing as if she had truly been with him again. Other nights, she would force herself back to sleep, desperate to hold onto him a little longer. In her dreams, he wasn't just a vague memory. He was real—his voice, his warmth, the way he used to look at her. She didn't know if it was her imagination or something beyond her understanding, but in those dreams, he felt real.

And when she woke, the ache in her chest felt unbearable.

During the day, she would search for him in the faces of strangers. A fleeting glance in a crowd, a smile that felt familiar—it didn't matter how irrational it was. Every time, she hoped—desperately—that he was still alive. That somehow, at some point in these fifteen years, he had escaped the island. She clung to the idea that the island, which had healed so many others before, might have done the same for him. Why wouldn't it? He was the candidate who had chosen to save it. He was special, wasn't he? And maybe—just maybe—she would find his gaze locking with hers in the middle of a crowd, as if fate had finally led him back to her.

And then, there was his name. Jack. It was everywhere, whispered by acquaintances, shouted by strangers. There were plenty of Jacks in the world, but for her, that name belonged to one person and one person only. Her Jack.

"How am I supposed to live the rest of my life, knowing he's still a part of everything I do?"

Some days, she would felt deeply defeated and simply accept it. Jack wasn't gone. Not really. He was her ghost—a lingering presence in her life. A part of him still remained, woven into her existence in a way she could never untangle.

And if Jack was her ghost, then their son, David, was her anchor.

David, now fifteen, was a living reflection of everything she and Jack had once been. Her warm green eyes, his stubborn sense of justice, the way he always felt the need to help others—it was all Jack, and it was all her. Every time she looked at him, it was like seeing a piece of Jack brought back to life. The only piece of them she had left to hold on to.

After loosing Aaron, raising David by her own had been the hardest thing Kate had ever done. But it had also been her salvation. He gave her a reason to get out of bed in the mornings, a reason to push through the pain. Through David, she felt Jack's love and presence again.

Still, it wasn't easy. David was growing up—becoming a teenager, full of independence and recklessness. He was her joy, but also her biggest challenge. And sometimes, when Kate looked at him, she didn't know if the ache in her heart was from the love she felt for her son, or the longing for the man who had given him to her.

Fifteen years, and Jack was still everywhere. In her dreams. In her memories. In her son's eyes. And no matter how far she had tried to move forward, the truth was simple:

Some ghosts never leave.