Rocco-s Pov 17 May 2026

“Yeah,” he said. And for once, he didn’t say it like a lie.

Rocco stared at the screen. The point. A gravel beach down by the old quarry where kids went to drink warm beer and pretend they weren’t terrified of Monday morning. Last week, he’d watched a girl named Mia throw a bottle into the lake so hard it skipped six times. She’d laughed, but her eyes had been dead. He recognized that look. It was the same one he saw in the mirror after his father’s monthly phone call—the one where the old man promised to come to a baseball game and then found a reason to cancel by the second sentence. rocco-s pov 17

“He’s just so angry,” she whispered, her voice a razor blade wrapped in tissue. “I don’t know this person anymore.” “Yeah,” he said

He smiled—a small, crooked thing—and started walking toward the point. The point