Chapter Text
Jonathan didn’t know why he felt restless that morning.
It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t fear.
It was pressure.
Like someone had placed a steady palm in the center of his chest and was pushing — slowly, deliberately.
He tried to ignore it.
In class, he took notes. Pretended to focus. Told himself it was stress. Lack of sleep. Anything logical.
Billy wasn’t part of his life.
Billy wasn’t—
The pain hit without warning.
Not gradual.
Not sharp at first.
An impact.
A brutal force slamming into his left side that knocked the air straight out of him.
His pencil slipped from his fingers.
The chair screeched as he bent forward, clutching his ribs.
For a second, he couldn’t breathe.
It felt like being rammed.
Like metal crushing inward.
A high ringing filled his ears.
“Jonathan?” the teacher’s voice sounded far away.
The world tilted, then steadied.
But the pain didn’t fade.
It stayed.
Deep. Pulsing. Burning under his ribs as if something inside him had cracked.
Jonathan swallowed hard.
There was no blood.
No visible bruise.
Nothing to explain why it hurt like he’d just been thrown against concrete.
And then he knew.
He didn’t think it.
He didn’t reason it out.
He knew.
Billy.
Miles away, glass glittered across asphalt.
A car mangled against a barrier.
The smell of gasoline thick in the air.
Sirens growing louder.
Billy struggled to breathe, barely conscious, each inhale scraping through fractured ribs.
His hand twitched weakly.
Pain radiated from his left side — the exact same place Jonathan was gripping.
Back in the classroom, Jonathan squeezed his eyes shut.
Air wouldn’t come in right.
His ribs felt like they were splintering from the inside.
And for the first time in years, he whispered the name he had sworn never to say again.
“Billy…”
At home, the cat’s head snapped up.
Ears alert.
A low, uneasy cry.
As if it had felt it too.
And the pressure in Jonathan’s chest only tightened.