Sienna

I barely slept.

Jaxon didn’t want to talk anymore that night. He didn’t even want to be touched at first. When I followed him upstairs, he whispered, “I need space. Just tonight.”

So I gave him space.

I sat in the corner of his room while he lay on his bed staring at the ceiling with dead, empty eyes. I didn’t speak until he whispered, sometime around 3 a.m., barely loud enough for me to hear:

“Please don’t leave.”

So I crawled onto his bed quietly, lying beside him without touching him, just close enough for him to feel I was there. Eventually, he drifted off, exhausted from crying....