Page 35 of Beautifully Broken
Every Reason Why
Prologue
Caleb
Two years ago
The lilies were too strong. Too sweet. Too thick. Like grief disguised as perfume. The kind that coated the inside of my throat, made it impossible to breathe without tasting loss.
I sat stiff as a board in the front right pew, caught between my mother and Emily, who’d been my best friend since middle school. Neither of them spoke. Neither had to. I could feel them on either side of me, like bookends trying to keep me from toppling.
It wasn’t working.
The church was warm, almost stifling, and even though it was barely noon, the weight in the room felt heavy and old—like it had been collecting since the moment I picked out a casket I couldn’t afford for a woman I couldn’t imagine being without.
My palms were damp. My back was tense. The edges of the funeral program in my lap had gone soft with sweat. It was bent now, creased right down the middle from where my thumb wouldn’t stop running the same line over and over again.
I hadn’t cried yet. Not really. A few tears in the shower. That tight feeling in the back of my throat that came and went like a cough I couldn’t clear. But mostly… I was numb. The kind of numbness that felt like I was standing outside my own body, watching it go through the motions while my soul curled up somewhere deep and refused to come out.
I kept my eyes on the casket.
White.
God, she would’ve hated that. Too proper. Too stiff. Too not her. Hannah liked color. Wildflowers. Anything with a little chaos. I hadn’t argued whenthey asked me to pick. Couldn’t. I barely remembered the conversation, just nodded when someone said "simple and elegant." And now here it was, sitting under the fractured light of stained glass windows, draped in red and gold and soft blue. Sunlight spilled over the glossy surface like it was holy. Like the world was still beautiful.
It made me want to throw something.
She was twenty-five.
I was twenty-six.
And a fucking widower.
The word didn’t feel like mine. It clung to me anyway. A label that wrapped tight around my chest every time someone looked at me with too much softness in their eyes. I didn’t want their softness. Didn’t want their casseroles or their sympathy.
I wanted her.
Her laugh in the morning. Her shampoo on my pillow. The sound of her dancing barefoot in the kitchen just to make me smile. The coffee mug with her lipstick print still in the dishwasher. The hair tie still looped around the gearshift in my truck. The last text she sent—on my way home!—still unread because opening it would make it too real.
The pastor’s voice faded in and out. I heard my name once. Hannah’s more. Words likebelovedandtaken too soonechoed off the stained wood rafters like well-meaning lies. Across the aisle, her family sat stone still. Her mother clutched a shredded tissue like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Her father stared at the altar like if he looked long enough, she might sit up. Her grandparents sat small and quiet, like grief had caved them in from the inside out.
And then there was her brother. Nate.
I hadn’t spoken to him since the hospital. Since the beep of the monitor went flat and I’d collapsed into a chair that didn’t feel real. We hadn’t talked because I couldn’t. Because I knew if I looked Nate in the eye and saw everything broken back at me, it might kill what was left.
He sat rigid. Pale. His jaw ticked so hard I was afraid it might crack.
When our gazes almost touched, I looked away.
Not out of guilt.
Out of survival.
I was barely keeping myself together. I couldn’t carry someone else’s avalanche too.
The funeral program slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a soft slap. Her photo stared up at me. Windblown dark hair. Big smile. Mid-laugh over something I couldn’t remember anymore.
God.
