Chapter 18: Shared Weight

The house felt different that morning.

It wasn't silence—not exactly. It was something softer. Like the air had let go of something heavy, just enough for the walls to breathe again.

David stepped into the kitchen and found Meher already there. Her hair was tied back, hoodie oversized, a spoon in her mouth as she tasted something from a pot on the stove. She didn't flinch when she saw him. She just smiled, gently.

"Didn't think you'd be up this early," she said.

"Didn't think I'd sleep," he replied. "But I did. For the first time in a while."

She set the spoon down. "Oatmeal. With brown sugar and walnuts. Mavia's favorite, remember?"

David nodded. He remembered the exact way Mavia used to mash the walnuts before sprinkling them in. Like it somehow made them taste better.

They sat across from each other at the table, the steam from the bowls curling into the air. For a few minutes, neither of them said anything.

Then Meher looked up. "You're really doing it, you know."

David blinked. "Doing what?"

"Carrying him forward. Not just grieving him. Telling him. Telling us."

He stirred the oatmeal slowly. "I didn't think people would read it."

"They are." She smiled, but it was sad around the edges. "And they're not just reading. They're feeling seen. And maybe a little less alone."

He glanced up. "You, too?"

She hesitated. Then nodded. "Yeah. Me too."

There was something in the way she said it—quiet, but grounded. As if she'd let a part of herself show that she usually kept locked away.

---

Later that day, they cleaned Mavia's room together.

Not to erase him. Not to pack him away.

Just to make space.

Space for memory, for clarity, for the kind of presence that lingers even after someone is gone.

David dusted off the shelf above Mavia's desk. Meher folded his shirts gently, one by one, into a box labeled keep.

She paused when she picked up a gray hoodie with faded ink across the chest. "He wore this the night we watched that horror movie marathon. Remember? You two made fun of the jump scares, and I was the only one genuinely terrified."

David laughed. "You screamed so loud during the clown scene."

"And he kept pausing it to make it worse."

They both chuckled.

The laughter didn't feel wrong. It felt like a thread being sewn back between them and him.

Later, as Meher knelt beside the closet, David sat back on the floor, arms resting on his knees.

"You were there for him in ways I wasn't," he said.

Meher looked over. "You were there in ways I couldn't be."

He met her eyes. "We were both trying, weren't we?"

She nodded. "In our own broken ways."

A pause.

Then David added, "I'm glad you're still here."

She didn't smile. Not exactly. But her face softened. "So am I."

---

That evening, David sat outside in the garden.

The light was fading. The sky was bruised with dusk.

Meher joined him quietly, carrying two mugs of tea.

She passed him one, then curled up beside him on the bench.

They sat in silence for a while, sipping slowly.

Then she asked, "Do you think he knew?"

"Knew what?"

"That we loved him. Not just loved—saw him."

David took a long breath. "I think part of him did. But another part… maybe didn't know how to believe it."

"I wish we'd said it more."

"Me too."

Another pause.

Meher turned slightly toward him. "You know, David… after he died, I shut everything down. I stopped painting. Stopped talking. Even when you tried, I—I just couldn't."

"I know," he said.

"But you didn't give up."

"No," he whispered. "Because I couldn't lose you, too."

Something shifted then.

Not romantic. Not confessional.

But something real. Unspoken.

The kind of bond that doesn't ask to be defined.

She reached out, took his hand in hers.

Not to comfort him.

To steady herself.

And he didn't let go.

---

That night, David posted again.

> Sometimes grief doesn't break you. Sometimes it uncovers the people still holding on beside you.

> Today I remembered how Meher held his things like they were fragile versions of memory.

> She said she shut down after he died. But I think she just paused.

> Now we're unpausing. Together.

> Not everything has to be love to matter.

> Sometimes the deepest connection comes in silence. In staying.

When the post went live, Meher was already asleep on the couch beside him, wrapped in the blanket they used to fight over as kids.

David watched her for a while.

And whispered, like he was still talking to Mavia:

"You gave me someone to miss.

But you also left me someone to hold."

---

End of Chapter 18