Leo looked down at the page again. Below his last sentence, he wrote:

The screen glowed with a half-typed message to his sister: “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

It still hurt. God, it hurt.

It feels like someone is squeezing my ribs from the inside. Like my chest is a fist, and it’s closing. Every breath is a negotiation.

He didn’t know she had her own version of the same PDF. She’d found it in a forum after their mom died. They’d never talked about it.

The first time Leo said it out loud, he was sitting on the bathroom floor, back against the cold tub, phone in his lap.

A pause. Then: “Hold on. It hurts, I know. But hold on.”

But for the first time in weeks, he wasn’t holding on alone.

Leo stared at the blank line on the printed page beside him. He’d printed it months ago, hoping the physical act of writing would help. So far, it just collected water stains from the sink.

He wrote that. Then more.

I am holding on. Even if my hands are bleeding.

Since I can’t access or reproduce specific PDFs or copyrighted texts, I can offer an inspired by the raw, emotional weight that title suggests. This story explores pain, endurance, and the fragile moment between breaking and holding on. Title: Hold On, It Hurts