Derrick Hale ♥



A Week After Liam's Burial

The Hale family was still shattered. A week had passed since they buried Liam, yet the ache in their hearts felt as raw as the day they’d laid him to rest. They hadn’t just lost their son—they had buried an empty casket. The wreckage from the accident had been unrecognizable, burned beyond recognition. The authorities, despite their best efforts, couldn’t find a body. It was as though Liam had vanished into thin air, leaving nothing but the charred remains of his car.

Tessa seemed to have lost all sense of herself. A girl who once filled their home with energy, laughter, and curiosity, she now carried the weight of grief far beyond her years. The light that had once sparkled in her eyes was gone, replaced by an emptiness that no one knew how to reach. It was as if part of her had died with Liam, and she wandered through the days in a fog of disbelief and sorrow.

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Her parents, Derrick and Melissa, had withdrawn into their own grief. Derrick, once a pillar of strength, now rarely spoke, his face clouded with sorrow and the weight of a loss he couldn’t begin to comprehend. Melissa, always the emotional heart of the family, had become a ghost of the woman she once was. She had stopped trying to keep up with life, her focus only on the empty space that Liam had left behind.

Evenings at the dinner table were the hardest. The house that had once been filled with conversations and the laughter of a family now echoed with painful silences. No one spoke. The clink of silverware against plates felt louder than ever, as if the absence of Liam was a heavy presence in the room. Tessa sat at the table, her eyes distant, her appetite long gone. Her parents barely looked at each other, both lost in their own worlds of pain. It was clear that Liam wasn’t the only one who had lost his life in that wreck; in many ways, they all had.