a band of white gold studded with a dozen perfect, tiny diamonds. There is one large, clear, sparkling, glittering stone in the middle, a million shining faces on it.

I can't bring myself to pick it up from the box, to put it on my finger.

It doesn't take a genius to imagine how much it would have cost him.

They insist it's mine. I don't tell them this but it feels like a curse, it sits there on my shelf because it represents everything cruel about the universe, everything rotten within myself, every part of Caleb that was one hundred and ten percent perfect.

And I stare at it, and I imagine.

I imagine him, alive. His golden hair, that bright grin on his face, perfect. Perfect perfect perfect.

And I imagine him, after he's told them the truth in court, and he's still alive because the security people do their jobs, make sure no one in that room has any kind of a weapon they could use to harm someone so incredibly heroic. Because he is, a hero.

And of course they win the case; how could they not?

And he comes home, to me. I run my hands through those messy blond waves and feel his lips, soft, his skin against mine, his smell.

We would spend the night in my bed and I would tell him how much I love him and then he would pull out the ring, while neither of us is wearing a single piece of clothing, and his grin would sparkle brighter than any diamond ever could.

And I would say yes yes yes. He'd try to put the ring on but I wouldn't let him, not yet.

My fingers on his face, easing that confused crinkle in his forehead. Me on top of him, holding him, explaining. I make him put the ring back in the box because first he has to know the truth about me, my secrets.

There are tears in my eyes as I tell him, and he just listens and listens and listens. And I tell him everything, about how I am a no good piece of shit.

And I slide off of him, ashamed, I say he should go marry someone who actually deserves him, because I don't I don't I don't.

He is stunned but he is perfect and he loves me and he shouldn't but he grabs my wrist and tugs me towards him, against his warm chest, and did I say he smells the same?

"That's so messed up, Ros." His voice is low and rough, I feel it in my chest and it's confused and sad and somehow amused at the same time.

"Tell me you hate me."

"I could never hate you."

And the tears, they don't stop.

And we would spend the entire night, until dawn, talking about it. He would ask me anything, everything, and I would tell him.

"Do you love him?"

"The only man I love is you."

"So you didn't sleep with him?"

"Never."

"Okay."

He would look at me, so tired.

"Caleb." It's a whimper. Because I (how many times have I said it) do not deserve him.

And a huge weight is lifted from me, because he knows. No more secrets no more lies no more no more...

"Do you still want to marry me?"

A small laugh. He takes my hand, laces his fingers with mine. "This ring has a shitty return policy so, yeah, I guess so."

I sniffle and laugh, winding my arms around his neck, and his hands on my bare back hold me to him, and it is okay.

"Am I supposed to hate him because he threatened you or because he seduced you?"

The laughter bubbles from my lips, buried in his neck. "Let's not talk about him."

"God. To think..."

We lay ourselves down and he tucks me in beside him and we pretend we still have hours left to sleep even if we don't. Slowly, tiredly, he goes through it a little, not to hurt me or to punish me, but because he really can't believe it. "I can't believe you live right next door to that bastard. That's gotta change."

"You asking me to move in with you?"

"Yes."

We're both drifting off into sleep and there is a long stretch of silence. But then he says one more thing, enough to ease the weight off my tired shoulders. "Don't feel so bad about it, Ros. How could you tell anyone when you live right beside the guy who's threatening you?" A yawn. "You did the right thing. It was the only option."

The tears swell. "You don't get to make me feel better. You owe me nothing, Caleb." I would hold him to me, whisper in his ear. "I'm not marrying you until you've punished me in a gazillion horrific ways, enough for us to call it even." And I mean it. I need him to hurt me back.

He smiles into my shoulder. "I'll think of something."

But he holds no grudges, is too good a person to want to get back at me. So we would just sleep, and it would be alright.

But it is too late for any of that, isn't it?

I will never ever find myself in those arms again.

•§•

waiting for me to mention him. You know who.

But I have nothing to say. I don't even let my mind go there, because if I did, I would simply explode. There isn't any way to make it okay, to make all the pieces fit, to be anything but angry and confused. Mostly at myself.

I don't know if you've ever experienced it where just thinking about something, even thinking about thinking about it, makes the entire world go black, hot, burning. Filled with this noise, this roaring, and it hurts, and your stomach squeezes, and you just can't.

It's like that.

I just can't.

And I imagine he knows this, because he leaves me completely alone. I wouldn't have anything coherent to say to him, regardless.

But it comes down to this:

He was sick that day, I saw him. He couldn't have been there.

That morning, when he came to ask me for tissues, did he know that Caleb went to the police?

Did he know his men were going to shoot him?

Did he order it?

You're not a good guy, Nero.

His fingers, gripping my waist, his warm breaths against my skin.

Then why can't I keep my hands off of you?

Stop it stop it stop it.

I owe it to Caleb to never see him, talk to him, think about him, ever again.

But it has never been that easy. I get queasy and sick and angry and warm all at the same time.

You could ask him.

He would deny it. And he would be very, very convincing.

I picture his eyes, feel his hands, his mouth.

Definitely not.

•§•

I try to sleep, the bed feels so incredibly empty.

I guess I don't deserve to be happy.

I don't even remember what happy feels like.

•§•

have been our one year anniversary, I visit his grave for the first time.

There are so many flowers. It's just a painful reminder of how many people loved him, lost him. People much better than I.

I leave him a present, something I found by accident. I was grocery shopping the other day when I saw a small toy, the exact same model of Caleb's dream car, the identical make and colour of a Porsche 911 that he once told me he wanted to own some day. I tuck it next to a bunch of wilted daisies, tears stinging my eyes.

I picture him, and his image in my head is both painfully vivid and so intangibly far. I kneel down, wish him a happy anniversary. Thank him for being the most perfect person I ever met. For loving me when he shouldn't have, for being brave enough to share the truth with the world, even if it cost him his life. To take my secret that was crushing me and let everyone know. So I didn't have to.

By the end the tears are too much to handle, and I have to stifle my sobs with the sleeve of my shirt.

I'm just talking to a slab of grey stone and a dead corpse buried in a wooden coffin deep under piles of grass and dirt. He is gone.

And even if Heaven does exist, I will not be going there, I will never see him again in this life or the next.

I am so drained when I make it back home that I spend the rest of our anniversary sobbing into a pillow, falling into a painful, restless sleep.

I can't imagine loving anybody, being loved by anybody, like Caleb ever again.

***

A/N

When you kill off the best character in the book 😭

I'm grieving here. Any sympathy?

I love hearing your comments and I appreciate your concern, you guys. Sorry this had to happen. ❤️

xoxo Ami

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