Jay-Jay's POV
The night it almost ended, London looked beautiful.
Thames lights smeared gold across black water, wind cold enough to bite but not enough to wake me up from the numb. Traffic hummed behind me, a low, distant growl. My hands rested on the railing of the bridge, fingers curled around metal that felt too solid for how hollow I was inside.
Twelve weeks.
That was all our baby got.
A handful of appointments, a grainy ultrasound photo, a list of names we never agreed on. And then blood and white walls and the word miscarriage delivered like it was a technical glitch, not my whole future ripped out.
Everyone kept saying the same things.
"You can try again."
"At least it was early."
"You're young."
As if the size of the life decided the size of the grief.
I had stopped correcting them. Stopped answering messages. Stopped doing anything that felt like a choice. Days blurred into each other—sleeping too much or not at all, staring at the ceiling while the shadows shifted, feeling like my body had betrayed me and my heart had decided to follow.
Keifer kept trying.
He made tea I didn't drink, cooked meals I didn't touch, filled the silence with soft reassurances I couldn't believe. He cried when he thought I wasn't looking. He held me when I woke up shaking and let me push him away when touch felt like a reminder of everything my body had failed to keep.
"Jay," he'd whisper, sitting on the floor beside the bed. "Say something. Anything. Even if you're angry at me."
I stayed quiet. Because the truth was worse than anger.
The truth was that I didn't know who I was if I wasn't surviving for the next thing.
For the first time since Kaizer. Since the hospital. Since London.
There wasn't a next thing.
That morning, I woke up with one clear thought:
They would all be better off without me.
No more watching me disappear in plain sight.
No more flat turned into a grave.
No more flinching every time someone mentioned kids or future or hope.
Just… peace.
I got dressed quietly. Nothing dramatic—jeans, hoodie, jacket. I didn't leave a note; that felt theatrical, like I'd be asking for someone to stop me. I turned my phone to silent and slipped it into my pocket anyway, more out of habit than intention.
The walk to the bridge felt unreal, like I was watching someone else's body move. My feet knew the way; we'd walked this route a hundred times, laughing, sharing chips, planning names and houses and silly traditions. Tonight, my steps were steady for the first time in weeks.
Because I had finally made a decision.
The thought alone made the noise in my head go quiet.
I wrapped my fingers around the cold railing and let my eyes trace the water below, churning softly. It didn't look violent. Just… inevitable.
I thought about Mama, about Curtis, about Kaizer. About every time I'd clawed my way back from someone else's damage.
This time, I was the damage.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to the invisible baby I'd never hold. "If I can't live for you… what's the point?"
Wind stung my eyes. Or maybe that was tears. I lifted one leg, knee scraping metal as I tested how easy it would be to climb.
My phone started vibrating in my pocket. Once. Twice. Again. Constant.
Annoyance flared, slicing through the numb. I pulled it out with shaking fingers, just to shut it up. The screen lit up with a flood of notifications:
– 32 missed calls – Rakki
– 18 missed calls – Keifer
– 9 missed calls – Serina
– Group chat: WHERE ARE YOU
– Group chat: JAY ANSWER NOW
– Voice call incoming – Keifer
He never spam-called like this.
I stared, thumb hovering. Let it ring. Watched it stop. Then start again immediately.
It wasn't until I saw the last message from him that my chest cracked:
If you're on the bridge, please look behind you.
I frowned. Turned.
He was there.
Twenty meters away, chest heaving like he'd sprinted the whole of London, hair a mess, jacket half-zipped, eyes wild with terror.
"Jay," he gasped, voice tearing out of him.
For a second, I froze. One leg still half-lifted, fingers gripping railing. The image of myself from the outside hit me like a slap.
I didn't get time to process it before someone else slammed into him from behind.
Rakki. Freya. Grace. Felix. Calix. Denzel. Percy. C-in.
They were all there, breathless, faces pale, like they'd been chasing ghosts.
"Don't move," Calix said, voice low, directed at me like we were back facing a gun, not a river. "Stay with us, JJ."
"Get away," I whispered, throat tight. "I'm fine."
"You're not," Rakki said, eyes shining, mascara streaked. "And that's okay. Just… don't be gone on top of that."
Keifer approached slowly, palms open, like he was trying not to spook a wounded animal. There was distance between each of his steps, measured, deliberate.
"Jay," he said again, softer now. Closer. "Can you put your leg back down for me?"
Shame burned hot in my chest. Tears blurred the water, the railing, his face.
"I'm tired," I choked out. "I'm so tired, Keifer. I don't know how to keep doing this. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to be."
"I know," he said, voice cracking. "I know, baby. And you don't have to pretend it doesn't. You don't have to be strong right now. Just… be here. With me."
He reached the edge of where he could realistically grab me if I slipped. Stopped. Didn't lunge. Didn't force.
"Look at me," he said, echoing a hundred moments before.
Reluctantly, I did.
His eyes were wet, overflowing, tears tracking down his cheeks in a way I'd almost never seen. Keifer cried in private, in bathrooms and dark corners, after everyone else was taken care of. Seeing him come apart in front of me felt like the ground shifting.
"If you jump," he said, voice barely above a whisper, "I don't follow you. I fall after you. Do you understand?"
The words punched the air from my lungs.
"This pain you're carrying?" He thumped a fist against his chest. "It's already in me too. I lost that baby too. I watched you fade away on that hospital bed again. I go to sleep every night wondering if I'll wake up and you'll be gone. You leaving doesn't erase the hurt. It just leaves all of it here with us, and takes you away."
My leg trembled. Slowly, mechanically, I pulled it back over the railing and set my foot firmly on the pavement. The moment both soles touched concrete, my knees gave out.
Keifer lunged then—just enough to catch me before I hit the ground. We collapsed together, my body coming apart in sobs that felt like they were tearing muscle from bone.
"I'm sorry," I kept gasping, over and over, the words spilling out like blood. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
"Don't you dare apologize," he sobbed back, arms locked around me so tightly it almost hurt. His forehead pressed to mine, our tears mixing. "Don't ever be sorry for being in pain. Be sorry if you make me live in a world without you."
Arms encircled us from all sides. Felix sank to his knees behind me, big hands anchoring my shoulders. Rakki wrapped herself around my back, whispering "I've got you, bestie, I've got you" like a mantra. Freya clutched my hand so hard it hurt, Grace pressed tissues uselessly to my face, Denzel hovered, shaking. Percy and C-in were both crying openly, faces crumpled.
Serina arrived last, out of breath, hair coming loose from her bun, eyes wide with terror. She didn't hesitate. She dropped down in front of me, cupping my face in both hands.
"Anak," she said, voice breaking. "If you had left like that, you would have taken my heart with you. You think we survived everything to lose you now?"
"I can't be a mother," I whispered, the confession ripping out raw. "I failed. My body failed. I killed—"
"Stop," she said sharply, tears spilling. "You did not kill anyone. Your body is not your enemy. It is exhausted. Hurt. But it is good. It kept you alive through things most people never see. It is allowed to be tired without being thrown away."
I shook my head, sobbing harder. Keifer held me tighter, as if he could keep the pieces from flying apart.
"I don't know how to live with this," I admitted. "It's like there's this… hole, and it's eating everything."
"Then we live with it together," Keifer said. His voice was hoarse, raw. "We find a therapist who understands this. We go to every appointment. I take time off work. We tell Angelo I'm not as strong as he thinks—I need space too. We let Section E cook and annoy and sit in silence with us. But you don't carry this alone and you don't leave."
"That's not fair," I choked. "I'm so tired."
"I know," he repeated, his own shoulders shaking now. "So let us carry you. You carried all of us through hell more times than I can count. Let us return the favour."
We stayed there on the cold pavement for a long time, a knot of shaking bodies and muffled sobs, London moving around us like we were invisible. Cars passed. A couple glanced over then looked away quickly, embarrassed. Someone snapped a photo and Felix shot them a glare that sent them scurrying.
Eventually, the shaking slowed. My breaths came less ragged, though my chest still ached. My fingers had gone numb from clutching Keifer's shirt.
"I don't trust myself," I admitted quietly, my voice nothing but sand. "I don't know if I'm going to feel like this again tomorrow. Or next week."
"That's okay," he said. "We won't trust you either."
I blinked, startled. He managed a broken almost-smile through the tears.
"I mean it," he went on. "No more pretending everything's fine. No more leaving the flat alone when you're this low. We make a plan. Safety stuff. You don't get left alone with your thoughts in the dark. Not until you're steady again."
"That's… pathetic," I whispered.
"That's survival," he corrected. "We've used safehouses and bodyguards for physical dangers our whole lives. This is the same. Your brain is not always a safe neighbourhood. So we don't send you in there alone right now."
Rakki sniffed. "We'll rotate shifts. Emotional bodyguards. I call first slot."
C-in wiped his nose noisily. "I'll sleep on your floor if I have to. Again. Bring snacks."
Serina nodded. "Tomorrow, we call a grief counsellor. A real one. Not a 'just get over it' one."
"And tonight?" I asked, hollow.
"Tonight we get you home," Keifer said. "We make you tea. We sit on the couch. We watch something stupid. And when you can't sleep, we stay awake with you. However long it takes."
My throat closed up again, but this time the tears were quieter. Exhausted.
"I don't deserve all of you," I whispered.
"Good," Felix said gruffly. "Because this isn't about deserve. It's about the fact that you're ours."
"And we're not letting go," Keifer finished, pressing his lips to my hair.
I let my weight sink fully into him then, the fight draining out of my limbs, leaving only a heavy, aching fatigue. The urge to step over the railing was gone, replaced by something messier, less clear but real: the awareness of all the hands currently holding me in place.
I didn't suddenly want to live.
But I didn't want them to live in the aftermath of my leaving.
For now, that had to be enough.
"Okay," I breathed. "Take me home."
He stood with me slowly, never letting go, arms still wrapped around my waist like he feared I might vanish. The others formed a loose circle, a moving shield as we walked off the bridge—away from the edge, toward the lights, toward a future I couldn't picture but was willing to keep walking toward one hour at a time.
That night, when I finally fell asleep on the couch between Keifer and Serina, Section E scattered across the floor in various tangled piles of limbs and blankets, the darkness didn't feel like a void.
It felt like a room full of people breathing.
And for the first time since the hospital, I let myself believe that even if I couldn't carry my own life for a while, there were enough hands around me to keep it from shattering completely.