MasukQuin's POVThe flight back to New York was silent.There was nothing comfortable about the silent though. It was just heavy and suffocating. Something irreplaceable has been taken out of my life, nothing feels comfortable.My sister was in the overhead compartment.The thought hit me every time my eyes drifted upward. I still couldn't believe that Billie, with her once big bright smile was now in a small cold urn.I hated it. I hated the way the flight attendant’s eyes softened when she looked at us. I hated the way turbulence made me imagine the urn shifting, as if even in death Billie couldn’t stay still. I hated that this was what remained.Tyler sat beside me the entire flight, his hand wrapped firmly around mine but we barely spoke. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t sound hollow. Every now and then his thumb brushed across my knuckles,it felt like a silent anchor. I held on like it was the only thing keeping me from shattering apart at thirty thousand feet.The crematio
Quin's POV"No."The word tore from my throat before my brain even caught up. It hung in the sterile air like a challenge, like a plea no one could answer.The doctor kept speaking—his voice low, measured and professional. Nurses moved around the bed with practiced efficiency. Machines hummed and beeped their indifferent rhythm. Somewhere behind me, my mother’s sobs fractured the room. But all of it faded beneath the relentless ringing in my ears.No. No. No. No.This wasn’t happening.Billie was sleeping. That was all. She’d pushed herself too hard, fought too long. She was exhausted and needed to rest. Any second now her eyelids would flutter open, and she’d give me that trademark half-smirk, the one that said she knew exactly how much she’d worried us and didn’t regret a single second of it.I stared at the monitor. At the flat green line that stretched endlessly across the screen.My brain refused to process what my eyes were seeing. Because an hour ago she had been talking—her vo
Quin's POVI sat beside Billie’s hospital bed through the long, suffocating night, listening to the mechanical rhythm of the heart monitor like it was a fragile lifeline I could will into permanence. The room was dim, illuminated only by the soft, eerie glow of machines—blue and green lines tracing the fragile proof that my sister was still here. Tyler had finally succumbed to exhaustion hours earlier, his head resting heavily against my shoulder, one hand loosely wrapped around my arm even in sleep. As if some part of him knew I was close to going off the edge.I envied him that brief escape. For a few hours, his mind could rest. While mine refused to.I could get the memory of Billie falling down the way she did.So I did the only thing I could. I opened the notes app on my phone and started a list. A desperate, foolish list of everything Billie still needed to experience before time ran out.Authentic Roman carbonara eaten at a tiny trattoria where the owner argued with customers.
Quin's POVThe ambulance ride was the longest journey of my life.I sat wedged beside the stretcher, gripping Billie’s hand so tightly my fingers had gone numb. Her skin felt cool, too fragile, like it might bruise under the pressure. She still hadn’t woken up. The paramedics moved with brisk efficiency around us, speaking rapid Italian into radios while attaching monitors to her chest. The moment they arrived I had told them about her condition. The machines beeped in a steady rhythm that should have been reassuring.Instead, every beep sounded like a countdown.My mother sat across from me, crying silently, tears tracking down her face without sound. My father looked devastated —shoulders hunched, jaw locked, eyes fixed on his daughter as if willing her to open hers. And me? To say I was terrified was an understatement of the year.Death no longer felt like some distant shadow on the horizon. It was here, in this swaying ambulance, in the oxygen mask covering my sister’s face, in th
Tyler's POV A few days later we all boarded a flight to Italy. Italy looked exactly like the postcards. Only better—richer, more vivid and impossibly alive. The moment our car crested the final hill and the Amalfi Coast unfolded beneath us, Billie burst into tears. Not the devastating kind we’d grown terrifyingly used to over the past week. These were bright, overwhelming happy tears. The kind that comes when a long-held dream steps out of your imagination and becomes real enough to touch. “Oh my God,” she breathed, stepping out onto the overlook. The afternoon sun painted the sea in liquid gold. Colorful houses clung defiantly to the cliffs, tumbling down toward the water like jewels spilled from a giant’s hand. Boats drifted lazily below, their sails bright against the blue. “Billie?” her mother asked softly, hovering close. My mother-in-law had barely left her daughter’s side since they were informed of her condition, as if proximity alone could ward off the inevitable.
Quin's POVI watched my parents in silence after Billie told them.The words still hung in the air like smoke after an explosion—thick, acrid, impossible to breathe through. For a long moment, no one moved. The penthouse, usually a fortress of controlled elegance, felt like it had been hollowed out.My mother stared at Billie as if the English language had suddenly betrayed her. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. Denial flickered across her face, bright and fragile, before reality began to crush it.My father looked worse.Much worse.William McKenzie had built an empire on composure. He negotiated billion-dollar deals with the calm of a man ordering coffee. He stared down hostile boardrooms and market crashes without flinching. But right now, the indestructible William McKenzie was gone.He looked only at his daughter. His dying daughter."No," he said finally. The single word scraped out, raw and hoarse.Billie lowered her gaze to her lap, fingers twisting together."That's not
Tyler’s POVI should have just gone to Quin's room. At least I would be too busy to check my phone. But then I had to play hard to get and now I'm restless and can't sleep. Aiden is a terrible person, which was the main reason I cut him off. But what does he mean he's coming to take what's his...I
Tyler's POV I prefer dream Quin to real Quin. Real Quin hated me and was most definitely straight. He kept fucking and hitting my prostrate, earning more screams from me. At some point he pulled the pillow from under me , flipped me over and held my ass to the air. I was soo close to the edge. I
Tyler's POV Quin and I didn't really play any drinking games. It was probably just his way of making me drink with him. I couldn't remember how we got to his room. Fuck. I drank too much. My eyes felt heavy, I could barely stand. I saw a figure moving towards me through my blurry vision. I rubb
Tyler's pov "You ungrateful piece of shit,” my mom yelled through the phone. “After everything I’ve done for you, Tyler. I even decided to keep you instead of flushing you out when I had the opportunity to.” It was nothing new, but the story was always new. “I told you I don’t have that kind







