No right to be standing here feeling like I'm being torn apart and put back together simultaneously.
I have a fiancé. A life. A future that doesn't include the man currently looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
And yet.
There's no chapel, no funeral, no witnesses.
Just him and me and the catastrophic realization that distance was always an illusion.
That you can run for seven years and it doesn't matter.
That some connections don't fade—they just wait.
Patiently.
This was a bad idea.
Such a fucking bad idea and now I’m paralysed.
His hands are shaking against the podium. I can see it from here—the tremor, the white-knuckled grip, the way he's holding on like it's the only thing keeping him upright.
And I realize I'm shaking too.
Someone shifts beside him—it’s Lydia. She touches his arm gently and that's what breaks it.
That small touch grounds him just enough to remember where he is. What he's supposed to be doing.
I watch him blink. Watch him forcibly tear his gaze away from mine even though it looks like it costs him everything.
Watch him swallow hard and try to find his place in the eulogy he was giving before I walked in and detonated his world.
"Sorry," he says, and his voice is wrecked. Raw. Nothing like the measured tone from before. "About building a life after loss."
I can barely hear him over the roaring in my ears but finally manage to look away—have to, before I do something catastrophic like run to him or collapse or start crying in the middle of Alfie's funeral. My hands find the back of the nearest pew. I grip it hard enough that the wood bites into my palms.
Trying to ground myself. Trying to remember how to breathe.
Trying not to completely fall apart.
My mom turns around from the front row, her eyes widening when she sees me. Her smile is soft, relieved, tinged with something that looks like hope.
I give her a small nod, hoping she can read the apology I don't yet know how to say.
Nick is beside her with Ollie and Mia beside him, her hand resting on her belly. Lydia sits on her other side, tissues clutched in her hand.
All of them together. All of them, people I love more than I know how to explain. And somehow, sitting here among them, I've never felt more out of place.
The service continues.
People share stories—about Alfie's wisdom, his endless patience with customers who browsed for hours without buying, the way he knew exactly which book you needed before you did.
Someone talks about how he kept the store open late when their daughter needed a quiet place to study. Another mentions the reading group he started for kids who struggled with literacy.
I listen, but I'm not really hearing.
I'm too aware of Nate at the front, too conscious of the way my heart is hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
When the service ends, people drift towards the front of the chapel where quiet conversations start.
