James sat on the edge of his bed, the early morning light casting long shadows across the room. He hadn’t slept. His eyes were hollow, the remnants of a night spent in an all-consuming haze. He couldn’t forget. Couldn’t stop replaying the moments when everything had shattered. 

His phone rang, its shrill tone cutting through the silence. It was from a number he didn’t recognize. The voice on the other end, calm but strained, brought the words he dreaded: "James, it’s about Eli." His best friend. Eli had suffocated, trapped in the wreckage of a collapsed building. They couldn’t save him in time. 

James squeezed his eyes shut as if to block out the image of Eli’s last moments—the struggle for air, the desperation in his voice, the way his hands had clawed at the dust-filled air, reaching for a world that was slipping away. He didn’t know how to grieve Eli. Grief was supposed to be linear, right? You cry, you mourn, you heal. But this felt like an open wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.  

At the funeral, James had stood stiffly, his eyes fixed on the casket, numb to the sobs of those around him. The sight of Eli’s body, lifeless, closed his throat in a way that no words could articulate. Everyone had said *"I’m sorry."* Everyone had told him it would get better. But it hadn’t. The ache in his chest had only grown, pulsing with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

James wasn’t the kind of man who had close friends outside of Eli. Eli had been the first one to pull him out of his shell, to show him what it meant to truly *live*. But now, with Eli gone, James was left in a world that felt colder, emptier, more distant.

It wasn’t until one evening, when James found himself staring at the guitar Eli had left behind—untouched, gathering dust—that something inside him cracked open. 

He picked up the guitar, his hands shaking slightly. The last time they’d played together, Eli had been beside him, strumming away at his favorite chords, singing with a voice that always seemed to carry the weight of the world and make it sound light. That memory, the sound of Eli’s laugh, hit James like a punch in the gut.

Without thinking, he began to play. It was a song they had written together, one that had always made Eli laugh because it was so ridiculous—an inside joke that only they understood. As he played, the weight of the silence grew unbearable. And then, he remembered something Eli had said to him just months before. “When it’s all gone—when we’ve lost everything—what will we still have? What will be left?”

James didn’t know what Eli had meant at the time. But now, he understood. The memory. The music. The love they had shared. That would be what was left. It would have to be enough. It had to be enough.

Over the following weeks, James found himself playing more often. It started as a form of catharsis and gradually became a way of holding on to Eli. A way of remembering that the suffocation wasn’t just about air. It was about the loss of connection, the loss of being seen, understood.

James began performing again, quietly, at local open mic nights, though it took every ounce of courage to step onto the stage. Slowly, the sharp edges of his grief began to dull, though it was still there. Each song became a conversation with his lost friend, as if, somehow, Eli was listening.

One evening, after a particularly raw performance, a young woman approached him, her voice shaky. “That song... It’s like you were playing for him. For *someone*... It’s exactly what I needed.” James smiled, “It’s for everyone we’ve lost,” he said quietly. “And for everyone we still have.”

The suffocating weight of grief wasn’t gone, but it had shifted. Now, it was something he carried with him, a part of who he had become. And with each song, it became just a little bit lighter.