Chapter 32 Hollow days
Grief hollowed Lila out.
It didn’t come in loud, crashing waves the way people said it would. It seeped in quietly between words, in empty rooms, in the space Ruby used to fill with laughter.
After Ruby's funeral, the world didn’t end. It just kept going without her.
Classes continued. Students laughed outside her window like nothing happened.
But for Lila, everything had gone dim like the lights around her had lost their strength.
The morning after Ruby’s funeral, Lila sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor for almost an hour before she realized she hadn’t even changed out of her black dress. The room smelled faintly of roses, someone had left flowers outside her door, and she couldn’t bring herself to throw them away.
Ruby’s bed was still neatly made, the corner of her pillow dipped where her head once rested. Lila hadn’t touched it. She couldn’t go near the bed. Every time she looked that way, it felt like her chest was splitting open all over again.
She’d wake at night thinking she heard Ruby humming, the way she always did while brushing her hair. But the sound was never there when she opened her eyes, she heard just the hum of the heater and the stillness pressing against her ears.
Sleep never stayed long. Neither did peace.
At school, she drifted through the halls like a shadow.
People whispered when she passed. They didn’t mean to be cruel. She could tell by the way their eyes softened, the way they lowered their voices but it didn’t help.
Whispers were still whispers. And every one of them made her feel smaller.
In class, she sat in the back, eyes down, pretending to take notes while her thoughts wandered somewhere far away.
Professor Beckett’s assistant talked about reason and empathy in ethics, but the words blurred into meaningless sound.
How could she think about the reason when her friend’s body had been found by the lake? How could she think about empathy when every time someone reached out, she flinched?
Even Mercer’s voice, that was calm, measured, and kind felt far away now. She remembered how he’d looked at Ruby’s empty chair in the photography lab that last day. He’d said nothing. He didn’t have to, but she knew he felt her demise.
Now, whenever he spoke in class, she felt her stomach tighten, waiting for him to say Ruby’s name again. He never did.
Her group project partners eventually stopped asking if she’d done her part.
At first, they tried with soft reminders, gentle smiles, pretending not to notice when she didn’t show up for meetings. But after a while, they just stopped including her name on the sign-up sheets.
She didn’t blame them. She couldn’t even finish reading a page without her mind wandering back to Ruby’s laughter the way she’d tease her for being too serious for someone who liked taking pictures of clouds.
Now, the camera sat untouched on Lila’s desk, the lens cap still on. She hadn’t taken a photo in weeks.
When she looked through it once, all she could see was the reflection of her own face pale, distant, and tired.
She wondered when she’d started looking like that.
Some days she thought about calling her parents, but she couldn’t bear the idea of their voices being gentle, worried, full of questions she didn’t want to answer.
“How are you holding up?”
“Are you eating?”
“Are you talking to anyone?”
No, she wasn’t.
And no, she didn’t want to.
She just wanted to stop feeling to quiet the noise in her head that whispered. She should have done something. She should have been more observant.
Because Ruby had been right there, right beside her and Lila hadn’t seen it.
Whatever it was. Whoever it was.
She hadn’t seen it coming.
A week passed, maybe two. She couldn’t tell anymore.
That afternoon, she walked across the courtyard, head down, her bag hanging loosely from one shoulder. The autumn wind bit against her skin, but she didn’t bother zipping her jacket.
Her mind drifted, half in the past, half nowhere at all.
She didn’t notice someone calling her name.
“Lila! Hey, wait!”
The voice broke through the fog, faint at first, then sharper.
She didn’t turn.
“Lila!”
A hand touched her shoulder. She jumped, spinning around with wide eyes, her breath catching in her throat.
Roy stood there, startled by her reaction. “Hey, it’s me! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She blinked, trying to process his face, his voice, the sudden rush of presence after so much silence.
For a second, she thought she might cry again.
“Roy” Her voice was small, barely there.
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s been a while.”
And just like that, something cracked open inside her, all the pain she’d been holding back, all the noise she’d been trying to swallow.
Before she could stop herself, she stepped forward and hugged him.
It wasn’t graceful or planned. It was desperate. The kind of hug that clings.
Roy froze, surprised, then gently wrapped his arms around her.
“I miss her,” Lila whispered, the words muffled against his shoulder. “I miss her so much. I can’t stop thinking about her that day. About how she..” Her voice broke.
Roy said nothing at first. He just held her tighter. “I know,” he murmured finally. “I know, Lila.”
They stood like that for a long moment, the wind brushing against their hair, the world quiet except for the faint rustle of leaves.
When Lila pulled back, her eyes were red, her voice unsteady.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Roy gave her a small, sad smile. “You’ve been through enough.”
She nodded, looking down. Her hands shook slightly, and she rubbed them together as if to warm them.
Roy studied her face, she looked pale, thinner than before with shadows under her eyes.
“You look like you haven’t been eating,” he said gently.
She tried to smile. “I’m fine.”
He frowned. “No, you’re not. Come on. Let’s get lunch or something.”
“I’m not hungry,” she murmured.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll eat, you can sit there and make fun of me for ordering too much.”
That earned a tiny sound from her, something between a laugh and a sigh.
“I really don’t feel like..”
“Lila,” he said softly but firmly, “you need to get out of that dorm. Even just for an hour.”
She hesitated, her gaze dropping to the ground. The thought of sitting somewhere crowded made her chest tighten. But the thought of going back to her empty dorm felt worse.
She looked up at Roy again, his expression patient, kind, not pushing too hard but not letting her disappear either.
Her throat ached.
“Okay,” she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “Lunch.”
Roy smiled, the first real smile she’d seen in what felt like forever. “Good. There’s a café near the library. Best soup on campus.”
She nodded faintly. And for the first time in weeks, she followed someone instead of walking alone.