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Riize-Fame

He died.

The words arrived without ceremony, without warning, like a door slammed shut in a house I was still living in. One second there was a future — fragile, uncertain, but breathing — and the next there was only a sentence that refused to change no matter how many times I repeated it. He died.

The room around me felt too bright for something so dark. People spoke softly, carefully, as if grief were a glass object that might shatter if handled wrong. I nodded when I was supposed to, said thank you when condolences were offered, learned very quickly how to look functional while my insides collapsed.

I kept thinking I would wake up. That this was one of those cruel dreams where loss feels real only to disappear with morning light. But time moved forward without him, arrogant in its certainty. His phone stayed silent. His laugh stayed trapped in memory.

I remembered the last time I saw him leave, shoulders squared, smile practiced. He looked like someone who had learned how to survive crowds but not solitude. I should have stopped him. I should have said something profound, something that would anchor him to this world. Instead, I watched his back disappear and trusted tomorrow too much.

That night, I lay on the floor and listened to the city breathe through the window. I pressed my palms to my chest just to feel something respond. Grief didn’t arrive as tears at first. It came as emptiness, as the terrifying realization that love could exist without a place to go.