Meet Me Where the Oak Tree Grows

After sorting out my mom’s final arrangements, I came back home. Everything looked the same, yet felt completely different.
By the window, books were neatly stacked on the desk against the wall. A gentle breeze slipped through the half-open window, rustling the pages of a
well-loved copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. The edges were worn from frequent reading, and the wind whispered through them with a soft
hum.
The unfinished chapters would never be read by her again. The book was still here, but she wasn’t.
I sat in the kitchen, eating the cookies my mom had made, one after another, until my eyes ached from being so dry. I had always loved sweets, and
she’d promised these were extra sweet, but all I could taste was the saltiness of my tears.
No flavors came through, just the sharp bite of sorrow. I kept stuffing more into my mouth, until my empty stomach twisted in pain, waves of nausea
crashing over me.
“Stop, please,” Jonah's voice was thick with unshed tears.
I couldn't hear him. I just kept shoving cookies into my mouth.

Finally, when he couldn't watch any longer, he took the cookies away and pulled me to the bathroom, forcing me to spit them out.
I resisted, crying, “Let me go! If I finish the cookies, she'll come back. She promised she would come back and bake new ones for me. She promised
we’d go to the beach together.”
If only I hadn’t said I loved her. If I’d saved those words to tell her slowly, maybe she wouldn't have left so suddenly.
“Lana! She's not coming back! Mom is really gone.”
His grip on my shoulders tightened, his voice strained as he spoke the painful truth.
I stared at him, seeing Jonah’s tightly pressed lips, his pale face, and eyes filled with as much pain as mine.
Of course, she was Jonah’s mom first, and then mine. How could he not be hurting? He just didn’t show it.
I lowered my head and whispered, “I'm sorry. I get it now.”
His eyes were red, yet no tears fell. He gently wrapped his arms around me, resting his head against my neck, his shoulders trembling, the warmth of
his tears slowly soaking through the fabric, as if trying to burn me whole.

Meet Me Where the Oak Tree Grows
Chapter 49
Under the Veil I Rule

Chapter 305
He said, “It’s okay. You still have me.”
Life has paths that you walk while crying.
After finishing half a bowl of oatmeal, Jonah led me to the bedroom. “Get some rest. You haven’t slept in a long time.”
I held onto his hand, unwilling to let go, so he lay down beside me.
For a long time, we listened to each other's breathing in the quiet.
He gently touched my head. “Can’t sleep?”
I stared blankly at the ceiling, tears flowing endlessly. “I’m too scared to sleep.”
I was afraid that when I woke up, the last person beside me would have disappeared too.
In silence, he reached out, gently wiping my tears away with his thumb.
I said, “Jonah, you’re all I have left.”
He replied, “I won’t leave.”
Moonlight spilled through the window; outside was a lonely garden, a chilly alley. The clock on the wall ticked on, accompanied by the occasional bark
of a dog, all the loneliness shrouded in an indistinct mist.
The next morning, when I woke, the space beside me was empty, and my heart clenched instantly.
I stumbled down the stairs. Hearing his familiar voice at the bottom, I slowly came to a stop.
Reading History