Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.

Anne Roiphe

i.

Yixing hadn’t cried since Luhan left, not once. Because crying for Luhan meant admitting he was gone and Yixing couldn’t bring himself to do that. He had held desperately to the notion that maybe if Yixing didn’t mourn then Luhan would come back to him, that they could start all over again. Yixing realized now that Luhan was not coming back, and even if he did things would never be the same. Because they had both changed so much, too much and Yixing didn’t know how the pieces of their puzzle fit together anymore. He knew he could never be the Yixing before Luhan left again, and he didn’t know if he wanted to. He thought he had known Luhan, but he was learning he only knew a part of him and thought it was all of him. And he was learning he hadn’t known all of himself either, maybe it was time to. Because it frightened Yixing to think that he didn’t know who he was without Luhan.

ii.

That night Yixing cried until every breath felt like broken glass. That night Yixing mourned. For his best friend, for his brother. And when he woke up the next day, he didn’t.

iii.

Somebody once said time takes away the grief of men. Yixing thought his grief would never end. It did.