#phfb

The other two move, but he stays put. When Trish passes him, she pauses. “Giorno?”

He tells himself to move, but his feet are rooted. He tells himself to swallow the emotion flooding his chest, but the tide won’t subside. He tells himself to take a deep breath and blink away the tears, but they won’t go away. He tells himself to stop, to calm down, but his body ignores him.

He’s going to explode.

“You two go on ahead.” It’s no small miracle that his voice doesn’t waver over the words, though it’s tighter than it should be.

“Are you sure? We can—”

“I’m sure.” Giorno doesn’t mean to interrupt Mista so rudely, but he’s on the brink. He just needs them to leave; the thought of losing his composure in front of them makes his stomach twist in anxious knots. “I’ll just be a second.”

They’re too stubborn for it to convince them, and in the second of silence that follows, Giorno is terrified they’re going to insist on staying.

“Alright,” Mista finally says. “We’ll be in the car.”

Giorno doesn’t respond, distrusting himself. Before the soft, sand-shifting steps of Mista and Trish fade, a tear slips out, and he can’t hold back the flood anymore.

He hates crying. It’s not entirely because he’s an ugly crier—he tries his best, but snot just ends up everywhere—or because it’s generally an unpleasant thing to do—his eyes burn, especially as he roughly rubs away the tears. No, he hates crying because it’s useless.    

Crying won’t bring anyone back. It won’t turn back the clock and give him a second chance to save any of them. He keeps trying to hold his breath, to shove the tears away, to calm himself down, but every time he tries, the sobs break out that much harder. He doesn’t notice when he drops the shovel to bury his eyes in his palms, heart tearing itself apart as he tells himself to stop, stop, stop. 

He can’t hold it back, though. This storm has been building, ever since they first visited this beach. He nearly lost it then, but he’d managed to hold back.

Only for him to lose it now.

His heart feels like it’s moving sluggishly through a sticky, tar-black lagoon. The tears last for what seems like an eternity before they finally run dry, though his breaths are still shallow and gasping. His eyelashes are glued together, and the spot between his upper lip and nose burns from how much he’s rubbed at it.

Despite all that, he feels…lighter is the wrong word. He feels neutral, where before he felt a strange sense of desolation. Before, it felt like wrong was the only way things could go. Now, there’s simply direction—neither good nor bad.