“Hi,” I said quietly, not wanting to raise my voice.

“How are you doing?” Raine asked, sitting down beside me. He chuckled at his own question. “What a stupid thing to ask.”

“It’s alright…I don’t mind,” I replied blandly, looking down at my hands, trying to keep my mind occupied.

There was a brief pause.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, my hands now balling into lax fists.

“If it comforts you at all, I’ve lost someone too, but it wasn’t quite recently.”

My silence prompted him to continue.

“She wasn’t a relative…but she was very…loved.”

“Someone special, huh?” I said, now directing my gaze to the ceiling. “Too many people lose loved ones. It shouldn’t happen. But it does.”

There was no response, so I finished my statement.

“You know…when you lose someone, you feel like you’ve been sucked into a black hole. The worst thing is that life goes on like nothing ever happened.”

My eyes stung again.

“The world – it keeps spinning, no matter what happens.”