A shaky breath leaves me.
It’s not me.
I’m still here.
ThankGodI’m still here.
“Ella will truly be missed,” the preacher laments.
The words snap me back to reality like a rubber band stretched too far.
The casket is pink. White and blush flowers spill over the lid. Ella’s smiling prom photo sits in a gold frame beside it.
My chest tightens. I swallow hard, my heart still pounding too loud for a room this quiet.
I get to sit in this pew. I get to breathe.
Ella doesn’t.
My gaze stays fixed on the casket, this one not empty.
The relief flooding my system curdles into something heavier.
A couple of months ago, everyone in this room could have been mourning me.
The thought sinks deep in my bones, painful and undeniable.
All I can see is the image of Ella at twelve years old, sitting cross-legged on my floor with Hadley beside her, both of them laughing at something I can’t remember.
The memory is bright.
Back then, none of us could have known how her story would end.
My throat tightens because I’m the one remembering it. The one sitting in this pew.
I’m the one who gets to walk out of this church when the service is over.
Ella doesn’t.
My fingers tighten around Cullen’s hand.
The second chance I was given feels heavier than it ever has before.
But I don’t intend to waste it.
Chapter twenty-one
Cullen
Hud is laughing at something Hadley said, and it unsettles the hell out of me. I’ve been tracking every shift in his expression, just waiting for him to… I don’t know? Crack? Breakdown?
Leading up to Ella’s funeral, he was struggling, fighting familiar demons that only he could see. Now, only a day removed from the service, he’s laughing like his childhood best friend didn’t just die.
He has to be masking.
Is that what he is doing? Or am I seeing ghosts where there aren’t any?
Ignoring the signs before is what led me to not stopping Hudson that night. It’s a mistake I won’t make again, so I watch him. It’s the only thing I know how to do.
