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Tears ran down my face.
Somebody wrapped a coat around my shoulders, but I barely felt any of it.
Karl was gone, and life without him seemed impossible.
***
A doctor confirmed what the paramedic had guessed at. Karl had died of a heart attack.
Four days later, I buried him.
I arranged everything because there was no one else to do it.
Karl was gone, and life without him seemed impossible.
The only family member I found in his phone contacts was a cousin called Daniel. He came to the funeral, but nobody else from Karl’s family joined him.
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He stood off by himself near the edge of the lot after the service, hands in his coat pockets, looking like a man who wanted to leave but knew it would look bad if he did.
I walked over because grief had burned all softness out of me by then. “You’re Karl’s cousin, right?”
He nodded. “Daniel.”
He came to the funeral, but nobody else from Karl’s family joined him.
“I thought his parents would come.”
“Yeah…” Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re complicated people.”
The words made my anger rise so fast that it surprised me.
“What does that mean? Their son is dead.”
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He looked at me, then away. “They’re wealthy people. They don’t forgive mistakes like the one Karl made.”
“What mistake?”
“They’re complicated people.”
Daniel’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen like it had saved him.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I have to go.”
“Daniel.”
But he was already moving, fast enough that it almost looked like panic.
That was the first crack.
The second came that night, in the house Karl and I had shared.
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He looked at the screen like it had saved him.
The whole place looked like he might walk back in any minute, and that was unbearable.
I lay down, closed my eyes, and saw him hitting the floor again.
And again, and again.
I got up before dawn, packed a backpack, and left.
I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I could not stay in that house one more hour. I went to the station and bought a bus ticket to somewhere I had never been, because distance felt like the only thing I could still control.
I got up before dawn, packed a backpack, and left.
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When the bus pulled out, I leaned my head against the window and watched the city smear into gray morning. For the first time all week, I could breathe without feeling like I was swallowing glass.
At the next stop, the doors opened. People climbed on.
One of them slid into the empty seat beside me, and I caught a scent I knew so well it made my stomach turn over.
Karl’s cologne.
I turned my head.
I caught a scent I knew so well it made my stomach turn over.
It was Karl.
Not someone who looked like him, not a trick of grief, but Karl. Alive, pale, tired, but very real.
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Before I could scream, he leaned in close and said, “Don’t scream. You need to know the whole truth.”
My voice came out thin and scraped raw. “You died at our wedding.”
“I had to. I did it for us.”
