CHAPTER 2

LIORA Rain drizzled softly over the cemetery, heavens themselves mourning with us. The cold droplets soaked through my black dress and chilled my skin, but I barely felt it. Beside me, Ricky struggled to shield me with the umbrella, constantly adjusting it whenever the wind pushed the rain against us. A few feet away sat the black coffin, my trembling fingers tightening around the white rose I had been holding for over an hour. The petals were already crushed from how hard I gripped them. “To those he left behind,” the priest said softly “especially the woman he loved…” My chest tightened painfully and a broken sob escaped my throat before I could stop it. I lowered my head, tears spilling endlessly down my cheeks, mixing with the rainwater already soaking my face. “…Know that grief is only proof that love existed,” the priest continued. “And what is loved deeply can never truly be lost.” His words angered me, because how could he say that? How could anyone say he wasn’t truly lost when he was lying inside that coffin? When his smile was gone forever? When I would never hear his voice again? Never feel his arms around me? Never see him walk through the door like he always did? The cemetery workers slowly began lowering the coffin into the grave. “No…” I whispered weakly, my knees trembling.“No… no, please…” This was actually happening. They were putting him into the ground. Forever. A strangled cry left my lips as I stumbled forward, but Ricky caught me before I collapsed completely. His grip tightened around me while I shook violently in his arms. “Liora…” he whispered brokenly. But I couldn’t even hear him properly. My eyes remained locked on the coffin as it disappeared deeper and deeper into the darkness below. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” the priest continued. I shook my head frantically, tears blurring my vision. No. This couldn’t be the end. Just days ago, he was alive. Laughing. Breathing. Holding my hand. Promising me forever. And now all that remained was a coffin being lowered into the cold earth while strangers stood around pretending words could somehow make this pain easier to survive. My fingers finally loosened around the white rose, and it slipped from my hand, falling into the grave after him. I watched it land on top of the coffin. A soft, broken sound escaped my lips. And in that moment, as the rain poured harder around me and the love of my life disappeared beneath the ground, it felt like they were burying a part of me along with him. Ricky grabbed my shoulders, his lips moving quickly as he spoke to me, but I couldn’t hear a single word he was saying. My vision blurred. The cemetery. The rain. The people standing around us. Everything slowly faded away until Ricky’s terrified face became the very last thing I saw. Then everywhere turned completely black. *************** ONE YEAR LATER I still remembered that day. Every single detail of it. Sometimes I relived it so vividly in my sleep that I woke up gasping for air, convinced I was back at the cemetery again, watching them lower him into the ground. The guilt never left me. The constant thought repeated endlessly inside my head like a broken record. This wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t ask for chicken and beer. If I had asked for something else… if he never stopped at that restaurant… if he never chatted me up that day… maybe he would still be alive. I had returned to work months ago because staying at home alone with my thoughts was slowly destroying me, but even work couldn’t bring me back to life. My life still existed in black and white. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find color in anything anymore. “Liora?” The sound of my name pulled me away from my thoughts. I blinked slowly and looked up from the manuscript lying open in front of me. I had been staring at the same paragraph for almost twenty minutes without reading a single word. Edy stood beside my desk, concern flickering briefly across her face before she hid it with a polite smile. “Mr. Cyril wants to see you.” My stomach dropped instantly. Is he finally going to fire me? Honestly, I deserved it. As a book editor, I had been terrible this past year. What used to take me two weeks now took me months. Sometimes authors sent in corrections before I even finished reviewing their first drafts. My focus was gone, yet somehow, the company still kept paying me. I didn’t know whether to feel grateful or ashamed. Probably both. I forced a weak smile for the sake of courtesy. “Sure.” Edy nodded gently before walking away. I stared at the unfinished manuscript in front of me for a few more seconds before reaching for my phone on the table. Dragging my feet across the office floor, I made my way toward Cyril’s office at the end of the hallway. I raised my trembling hand and knocked once before pushing it open slowly. “You asked for me, sir?” I said quietly. He gestured toward the chair directly across from him. “Have a seat.” I quietly pulled the chair back and sat down, my body stiff with tension. Placing my hands on my thighs, I intertwined my fingers together tightly. A nervous habit I had developed over the past year made me pick absentmindedly at my pinky finger while I waited for him to speak. Cyril studied me for a moment before speaking again. “How are you doing?” The question almost made me laugh. Not because it was funny, but because I genuinely didn’t know the answer anymore. How was I doing? Was surviving the same thing as living? Was waking up every morning only to drag myself through another empty day considered “fine” now? I had no idea. Still, I gave him the same answer I gave everyone else. “Fine.” Cyril nodded slowly, though the look in his eyes told me he didn’t believe me for a second. Without saying anything else, he opened the side drawer of his desk and pulled out a white envelope, placed it on the desk before sliding it toward me. I stared at it blankly. “I… am I being fired?” Honestly, I wouldn’t blame him. “Of course not,” Cyril said quickly, sounding almost shocked that I would think that. He gestured toward the envelope again. “You’re getting transferred to our headquarters in New York.” I blinked at him slowly. New York? That made absolutely no sense. My eyes dropped back to the envelope as my mind struggled to process his words. Why would they transfer me there of all places? If anything, I expected a warning letter… not a transfer to the company headquarters. “I don’t even manage my duties well here,” I admitted honestly. “Why am I getting transferred to New York?” Cyril exhaled softly. “You need a change of environment, Liora.” My brows snapped together immediately. “No, I don’t.” A change of environment? What people failed to understand was that leaving Woodstuck meant leaving Evans behind. It meant I would no longer get to visit his grave every evening after work like I always did. No longer sit beside the cold marble headstone and tell him about my day. It sounded crazy, talking to someone who was gone, but those moments were the only things keeping me sane. The cemetery was the closest thing I had to him now. If I left… what would I even have left? “I am not leaving.” Cyril stared at me silently for a few seconds, then he sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. “Your parents are worried.” My eyes narrowed instantly. “Have you been speaking to them?” “This is a small town,” he replied dryly. “Everyone knows what’s going on with the other.” “Yet this same small town was unable to find the people who shot Evans dead,” I gritted out bitterly. “This same small town closed the case without making any real effort.” “We are not the cops!” Cyril suddenly snapped, his voice rising for the first time. “Don’t you dare make it seem like we are all okay with that decision.” My chest rose and fell unevenly as I looked away from him. I was done with this conversation. Pushing the chair backward harshly, I stood to my feet. “If you want to fire me, then go ahead and do it,” I said coldly. “But I am not leaving Woodstuck.” Believing I had made myself perfectly clear, I turned around and started walking toward the door. But Cyril’s next words stopped me in my tracks. “Your parents are hurting,” he said quietly. “Your mother is worried about you… especially since you’ve refused therapy.” My hand slowly tightened around the doorknob. “There is nothing wrong with me,” I whispered. Even I could hear how empty the words sounded. “Liora,” he said gently, “you stopped living the same day Evans died.” “I am fine,” I said stubbornly. “And my parents are fine too.” “Are they?” Cyril fired back immediately. “Did you even know your mother is now hypertensive?” My eyes widened instantly and I turned around so quickly I almost felt dizzy. “What did you just say?” “Stop making them worry, Liora,” he said quietly. “Go to New York. Take the job offer that comes with the apartment, and attend the therapy sessions your parents already booked for you over there.” I stared at him in shock. My parents booked a therapist? “They know about this New York offer?” I asked slowly. Cyril nodded. “And they sincerely hope you’ll accept it. They don’t want you suffering like this, and I’m certain Evans would want the same thing for you.” “I can’t just leave him behind,” I whispered before I could stop myself. Cyril’s face softened with understanding. “You’re not leaving him behind, Liora,” he said quietly. “You’re just giving yourself a chance to breathe again.”