Darius didn't sleep much that night.
He lay on his back in the dark, staring at the ceiling where the water stain still looked like a clenched fist. The quilt was kicked to the foot of the bed, sheets twisted around his legs from restless turning. The room smelled faintly of cedar and the lingering trace of Mom's laundry soap on the pillows. Outside, crickets had taken over from the cicadas—sharper, more insistent, like they were trying to get inside his head.
His left shoulder throbbed in time with his pulse. Not the sharp stab of fresh injury, but the dull, grinding ache that never quite left. He rolled onto his right side, then his stomach, then back again. Each shift pulled at the scar tissue running down his back, reminding him exactly where the shrapnel had torn through muscle and nerve. He could map the line with his fingers in the dark: from the top of his shoulder blade, jagged and uneven, down to the small of his back. A souvenir he couldn't trade in.
He sat up eventually, swung his legs over the edge of the mattress. Bare feet hit the cool hardwood. The floorboards creaked under his weight as he stood and walked to the dresser. The walnut box sat there, lid still closed. He stared at it for a long minute, then turned away.
Downstairs, the house was silent except for the refrigerator's low hum and the occasional tick of the wall clock. He didn't turn on lights—just moved by the faint glow of the streetlamp filtering through the living room curtains. He went to the kitchen, opened the cabinet under the sink where he'd hidden the pill bottle days ago. Oxy. Half-full. The label stared back at him in the dim light.
He pulled it out, shook it once. Pills rattled softly.
He could take one. Just one. Enough to dull the edge, quiet the noise in his head for a few hours. Enough to sleep without dreaming of dust and muzzle flashes and the wet sound of someone drowning in their own blood.
His thumb hovered over the cap.
Then he remembered Mom's voice from dinner: *You don't have to carry it all alone.*
He shoved the bottle back behind the drain cleaner, slammed the cabinet shut harder than he meant to. The sound echoed in the quiet house.
He went to the back door, stepped out onto the small deck. The night air was cooler, thick with the scent of cut grass and distant rain that hadn't arrived yet. Crickets sang in the weeds along the fence. A dog barked once, far off. He sat on the top step, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
The pain wasn't just in his shoulder anymore. It was deeper—under the skin, in the places words couldn't reach. Survivor's guilt, the VA shrink had called it during one of the mandatory sessions before discharge. *Common. Treatable.* Like it was a cold he could shake off with rest and pills.
He'd walked out of that office after the third session and never gone back.
Talk didn't fix ghosts.
He rubbed his scar again—slow circles, pressing hard enough to feel the ridge of it through the t-shirt. The pressure hurt, but it was a clean hurt. One he could control.
Footsteps inside the house—soft, familiar. The back door creaked open behind him.
Mom stepped out in her robe, hair loose around her shoulders, gray strands catching the faint porch light. She didn't say anything at first. Just sat beside him on the step, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
She looked out at the yard, at the dark shapes of the trees and the fence.
"You're hurting," she said quietly. Not a question.
"Yeah, Ma."
"Shoulder?"
"Mostly."
She nodded, like she understood the rest without him saying it. "You took the pills?"
"No."
"Good." She reached over, laid her hand on his forearm. Her fingers were warm, steady. "You don't have to do this alone, baby."
He didn't pull away. "I don't know how to do it any other way."
"I know." She squeezed once. "But you're not in the desert anymore. You're here. And here, we got people who'll sit with you. Me. Amara. That girl with the drawings. Even Vespera—she's got a way of making things lighter. And Nyxara… she carries her own shadows. Might understand better than most."
He exhaled slow. "I ain't good at asking."
"Then don't ask. Just let them in."
He looked at her then—really looked. The lines around her eyes deeper than he remembered, the gray in her hair more pronounced. She'd carried her own losses: Dad gone too soon, raising him alone on waitress tips and stubborn love. She'd never complained. Never broken.
"How'd you do it?" he asked. "After Dad?"
She stared out at the night. "One day at a time. Some days were harder. Some I cried in the shower so you wouldn't hear. But I kept moving. Kept feeding you. Kept breathing. That's all it is sometimes. Breathing until the weight gets lighter."
He nodded. Slow.
She stood, brushed off her robe. "Come inside when you're ready. Door's unlocked."
She went back in, screen door whispering shut behind her.
Darius stayed on the step a while longer. The crickets sang. A breeze moved through the trees, carrying the faint scent of rain on the way.
He rubbed his shoulder one last time—harder, until the ache sharpened, then dulled.
Then he stood.
Went inside.
Up the stairs.
Past the box on the dresser.
He lay back down, on his right side this time, facing the window.
Outside, the first drops of rain tapped against the glass—soft, hesitant.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep didn't come easy.
But when it finally did, it was dreamless.
For once.