“He would’ve said he could’ve gotten better grades.”
“Absolutely.”
She leaned against my shoulder.
Soon, she was talking about college again.
About classes she wanted to take and places she hoped to visit.
I listened.
For two years, I’d feared that moving forward meant losing what remained of Felix.
But watching Emma imagine her future with her brother’s photograph beside her, I finally understood.
Felix hadn’t needed his sister to stop living for him.
He’d wanted her to keep going.
And she’d found a way to take him with her without leaving herself behind.
The Echo of Silence
Emma moved slightly, her head still rested against my shoulder, her fingers tracing the faded velvet of the sofa cushion. The photograph of Felix sat on the low coffee table in front of us, catching the dim afternoon light. In it, he was nineteen, grinning under the shadow of a crooked baseball cap, his eyes crinkled at the corners in that sharp, energetic way he always had right before saying something absurdly competitive.
“I used to think that if I stopped crying every morning, it meant I was forgetting him,” she said softly, her voice carrying a fragile clarity. “For months after the accident, every time I felt happy, or even just okay, this wave of guilt would hit me like a brick wall. Like I was betraying him just by continuing to breathe while he couldn’t.”
I swallowed hard, feeling the familiar tight knot in my chest tighten just a fraction more. “I know,” I murmured. “I spent the last two years staying in the exact same place. Same apartment, same routine, same job I hated. I thought if I moved on, if I changed anything, I’d be erasing the last footprints he left.”
“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?” She looked up at me, her brown eyes bright with unshed tears, but beneath them lay a grounded strength I hadn’t seen in her since the funeral. “Trying to keep someone alive by holding your breath.”
“Yeah,” I replied, letting out a long, slow exhalation I felt like I’d been holding for years. “It really is.”
She sat up straight, turning to face me fully. The shift in her posture was subtle, but it felt monumental. “We don’t have to hold our breath anymore, Sam. Felix wouldn’t have wanted a monument made of our paused lives. He would have hated it. He probably would have called us idiots and told us to get off the couch.”
A small, quiet laugh slipped out of me—the first genuine laugh I’d felt in what felt like an eternity. “He definitely would have. And then he would’ve demanded we pay him five dollars for the advice.”
“Exactly,” Emma smiled, a faint dimple appearing on her cheek. “So I’m going to apply for the study abroad program in London next semester. I talked to the counselor yesterday.”
The word London hung in the air, heavy with distance, yet light with possibility. I looked at her, really looked at her, and saw the girl who used to dream without permission, who used to plan trips on folded paper maps on her bedroom floor.
“London,” I repeated, feeling a warm swell of pride replace the dull ache in my chest. “Felix always wanted to go to Europe. Remember how he insisted he’d learn French in two weeks?”
“And ended up only learning how to order croissants,” Emma said, her smile widening. “I’ll take him with me. In my head, in my notes, in every place I visit that he never got to see. Not as a ghost, but as a reason to look closer, to care more, to live harder.”
