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Because it was just the opposite in my case.
I looked around my tiny home once more, and for all the times I’d done that and felt Saul there with me, I didn’t that time.
The cold, harsh reality smacked me in the face.
I was alone, and I had a feeling I always would be.
SIX
Hanna
“Are you going to be okay?”
My arms were wrapped tightly around Whitney, after what had been a very long and difficult few hours together.
We’d just had Xavier’s funeral service. His body had finally been released to Whitney, and she’d immediately reached out to me to let me know that she wanted to have a service for him as soon as possible.
So, we worked together to make it happen.
I’d made arrangements at Short and Sweet as well. Fortunately, I hadn’t had anyone scheduled to check in today, so that was a positive. I did have some guests that were already checked in, though. So, I reached out to them, let them know I’d be unavailable for a few hours today, and fortunately, none of them seemed to have any issues or concerns about that.
A big part of me had been dreading even needing to come to this. I was already feeling so much about it, and I hadn’t been prepared for all of the emotions to resurface.
The truth was, over the days that followed, I tried to block the whole thing from my mind. It didn’t exactly work, and I found that I’d really struggled for the first few days. It wasn’t easy. But somehow, after a few days had passed, things got a little easier.
Of course, that made me feel guilty.
In the back of my mind, I was thinking that I should have been consumed with devastation. The fact that I wasn’t made me wonder if there was something wrong with me.
But deep down, I knew that wasn’t the case.
Xavier and I weren’t exactly close. Not like he and Whitney were. So, while I had grieved over what had happened to him, I had the strange feeling that my sadness was more about Saul and the despair I knew he’d feel if he’d been here.
Coming to the service today, though, hadn’t been easy. Because now I couldn’t make myself busy with projects around the houses. I had to face what had happened head on. Sadness consumed me, but as sad as I was, it didn’t compare to Whitney.
She was… God, she was being destroyed by the grief, completely weighed down by it. For me, it was almost more difficult to see how Xavier’s death was affecting her than it was for me to accept that he’d died.
I felt for her, and I was genuinely concerned about how she was going to handle things moving forward. That was precisely the reason why, now that the service was over and it was time for me to leave, I’d wrapped her in my arms and asked for confirmation that she was going to be alright.
“Probably not for a while yet,” she answered, her voice just a touch over a whisper. I loosened my hold on her, and Whitney did the same with me. “I already miss him so much.”
“I’m so sorry, Whitney,” I lamented. “I just can’t believe this happened.”
Tears in her eyes, she nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
“Let’s hope the police can get to the bottom of this, so we can have some closure,” I said. “I know it’s not going to bring him back, but at the very least, it might help to know exactly why this happened and that whoever is responsible is going to be held accountable.”
That was the one thing I’d learned since finding out that Xavier had been murdered. The police were investigating. They didn’t have any suspects just yet, but they had assured Whitney they were working on it and weren’t going to rest until they’d gotten to the bottom of it.
For her sake, I hoped they did.
As for me, I tried to ignore the fact that two people I knew had been murdered in less than a month. I hadn’t mentioned anything to Whitney about Jimmy. She was already dealing with enough, and it wasn’t as though telling her about it would change anything. Quite frankly, I thought it would only serve to make her more upset.
And why wouldn’t it?
Two people had been murdered.
Granted, Jimmy was not a nice guy, but it didn’t change the fact that there was someone out there who’d taken his life.
