Becker's POV...

I haven't seen Greya at school for three days and it's gnawing at me like an open wound. I know what she's going through — funerals, arrangements — but knowing and not seeing are different things. She's been on my mind since the moment I woke up this morning. Her absence makes my chest go tight in a way Jack's fists never did.

Returning home after the weekend made Jack worse than usual. I've spent the last few nights deflecting him away from Alec, taking the blows myself. Every inch of me aches. Some nights I wonder how long I can keep this up, how long I can keep getting back up and pretending nothing's wrong so Alec can sleep.

Ari and Fynn walk into class and I shove myself into the seat near them like a magnet. Anything to be closer to the people who know her.

"How's Greya?" I ask, too eager.

Ari answers first, soft. "She's holding up as best as anyone could. I don't know how she does it."

Fynn's voice is matter-of-fact. "She's the strongest person I know."

I want to believe them. I want to believe she can carry it. But when Ari tells me there's no funeral — just a private burial tomorrow because there's no more family — something cold runs through me. Nausea, a flutter behind my ribs. I feel staggeringly useless.

"Hey man, you look like you're about to hurl," Fynn says, and it hits me how pale I must be.

"I'm fine," I lie, but I don't wait to prove it. I bolt from the room to get air.

I drive without thinking. The car finds her street like it knows where it's going. I pull up in front of her house before I even realize I meant to turn around. I stand on her walkway for a minute and listen—distant, warm—laughter. The sound pulls me toward the backyard.

Through the fence I watch them: Greya and Chase passing a ball between them, light in her face as she laughs. Chase's cane taps as he wanders in toward the house. He's brilliant at juggling—better than me—and he does it without sight. You can't watch that and not be struck dumb by how much responsibility and pressure she carries quietly.

The sight should make me want to help her. Instead I step back, because I'm terrified of being another weight on her shoulders. I leave as quickly as I arrived, the coward in me figuring I can fix things by not adding to the mess.

Practice is supposed to fix everything. It usually does. But today I'm frayed. My head is buzzing before I even get to the locker room. Cohen and Declan hang back, watching me pace like they're trying to figure which version of me will show up.

"What are you looking at? Get to practice!" someone yells and I snap; the reflex to flinch is immediate, muscle memory from getting hit. I hate that I still flinch in front of them.

Cohen sees it too—his eyes drop to the dark bruises along my ribs. He doesn't ask, but I know he knows.

Sometimes I wish the cause of my breakdown was only Jack; at least that would be simple. But today it's more than that—there's Greya, and something about seeing her and Chase alone sends my walls toppling inward.

When I start talking, the words tumble out. "Greya's basically a teenage mom to her blind little brother and she took care of her elderly grandmother. How does she do it? Did you guys know she's been alone taking care of them all these years?"

Cohen and Declan exchange that look. "Yeah," they answer in unison.

"What do you mean, yeah?" I'm stunned. How did I never know this? I've been circling her for five years and never asked. My chest tightens—not from guilt exactly, not only from that—but from the cowardice of my silence.

"Not many people know," Cohen says. "Ari and Fynn do. My parents knew her parents and helped with the will after her mom died. They helped make sure Grams and the house were okay. Now they'll help Greya get custody of Chase, since she's eighteen. It's been quiet—Fynn and Ari don't broadcast it, she wants privacy."

"How did her parents die?" I need to ask the harder questions.

Declan answers the rest, softer. "Her mom had cancer. Her dad... he couldn't handle her death and took his own life. Greya found him. Somehow she's been holding things together since she was thirteen."

Hearing it hits me in the gut like a punch. I stumble toward the nearest trash can and empty my stomach into it.

The world tilts. I swallow water, wipe my mouth with my shirt, and feel mortified for having been such an idiot—infatuated but uninterested in actually knowing the person I claim I care about.

"Tomorrow," I say, standing up. My voice is cleaner than I feel. "We go to the memorial tomorrow. Private or not—she needs people there."

"Whatever you decide, we've got you," Declan says.

It's not about me. It's about her. About the kid who counts the tiles of the flooring because he can't see them, about the granny who loved them both until she couldn't anymore. It's about not being the guy who stood by and did nothing.

When we take the field, something shifts. My feet find the ball the way they always have. Everything channels—anger, shame, grief—into each touch, each run. I'm hard on myself, harder than any coach. I run harder, pass sharper, move with a fury that's not just competitiveness; it's penance.

By the end of practice my legs ache in that clean way that proves something was earned. It doesn't fix what I didn't know. It doesn't undo the nights I let Jack take his anger out on me so Alec would be safe. But it does give me something to hand Greya tomorrow: presence. Not answers, not words, just the fact that I'll show up.

"Let's go," I tell Cohen and Declan quietly as we walk off the field. My voice is steady now. "She's not alone."

And for the first time in a long time, feeling that resolve in my chest, I believe it.