170 — “Thank you, my little angel.”

“Used to be?” I look at Julian softly, afraid to touch on such a delicate subject, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

Julian sighs, looking to the other corner of the room.

“Jack’s death broke us. My mother especially. The thing about depression is that it always seems to sneak up like a shadow. It’s there, even when you think you’re over it, even when you’re fine and can’t feel it... It only takes one slip for it to come up again.” Julian says with painful familiarity, almost like he had suffered it himself. For some reason, I feel that he’s talking about himself more than about someone else.

But he brushes it off with a smile, inflating his lungs to the max.

“She’s feeling better now... Mother may no longer be the smiling, full-of-life woman she was before, but she’s still here.”

I stay silent for a few moments, absorbing his words, understanding them better than an