Shadowbound

I sat motionless in the hard wooden chair, its edges biting into my skin, as though even the furniture conspired to remind me of the ache I carried inside. My hands clutched the hem of my black dress, fingers twisting and wrinkling the fabric until my knuckles turned white. I focused on that sensation—the roughness of the cloth beneath my trembling grip—because it was the only thing tethering me to the present, keeping me from unraveling entirely. The funeral home was drenched in quiet sorrow. Hushed murmurs floated around the room like ghosts, punctuated by the muffled sound of stifled sobs. The faint sweetness of white lilies lingered in the air, mixing with the heavy musk of aged wood, a scent that pressed down on me, thick and suffocating. The chandelier overhead flickered faintly, casting shadows that seemed to sway and bend like restless spirits. The world blurred at the edges. Faces passed before me—some familiar, most not—drifting in and out of focus like shifting silhouettes. Their voices blended into one indistinguishable hum of condolences, words I heard but could not absorb. Sorry for your loss. They were wonderful people. They’re in a better place now. The phrases clattered against the walls of my hollow chest and fell flat. I had never felt so utterly, devastatingly alone. My parents—my anchor, my home, my entire world—were gone. Snatched from me in a single night, swallowed by flames that consumed not just their bodies but the very foundation of my life. They told me it was an accident, a cruel twist of fate on an unforgiving road. But even as I stared at the twin caskets resting only feet away, their polished wood glinting dully under the dim lights, something inside me screamed that this was not the full story. A gnawing instinct whispered of unanswered questions, of truths buried beneath the ashes. Today, I was expected to let them go. I swallowed hard, the motion painful against the knot in my throat. My chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, every inhale sharp, every exhale heavy. I tried to steady myself, but the air felt too thin, the room too small, my grief too large. It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be real. How could two people so vibrant, so endlessly loving, vanish in an instant? Their laughter, once the soundtrack of my every day, had been silenced. Their warmth had been extinguished, leaving me adrift in the cold. The emptiness in my chest was unbearable, a hollow void I knew nothing could ever fill. One by one, people approached. Their eyes held pity, their hands reached for mine, their voices wove together a tapestry of sorrow meant to comfort me. Yet each attempt only deepened the raw wound inside me. Their grief wasn’t mine. They couldn’t possibly understand that my world had ended while theirs kept turning. Beside me, Uncle Tristan was a steady, unshakable presence in the chaos. He had stepped in where everything else had fallen apart—arranging the funeral, keeping me from drowning in silence, coaxing food into me when the thought of eating turned my stomach. He had been my anchor, but even his strength could not pull me from the undertow of loss. He was also the one who convinced me to stand before everyone, to speak words I wasn’t sure I could bear to say. To deliver the obituary. I don’t know how I managed to do it. I remember walking up, each step heavier than the last, the wooden floor groaning beneath my weight as though it shared in my grief. My voice trembled when it finally left my lips, breaking in places where my heart broke too. I spoke of my parents—their kindness, their love, their sacrifices—but every word felt like a pale shadow of the truth. How could I capture their essence in a handful of sentences? How could language hold the weight of what they had been to me? The room was silent as I spoke, but I barely noticed. My eyes blurred with tears, my heart splintered with every breath, and all I wanted was for them to look at me again with their familiar smiles. To tell me it was okay. That I wasn’t alone. But I was. And as I stepped down from the podium, the weight of that truth settled over me like a shroud I knew I’d carry forever. Uncle Tristan stayed by my side the whole time, a quiet fortress. He placed his hand against the small of my back, an anchor on a sea I suddenly didn’t recognize. Later, in the stiff silence of the funeral home’s parlor, he pulled me into his arms the way you’d scoop up something that might shatter if handled too roughly. “You did good, baby,” he murmured into my hair. His voice was steady—too steady—and I wanted to believe him. After the viewing, there were arrangements to make: names to sign, relatives to speak to, condolences to nod through as if my face were a mask I could put on and take off. People—neighbors, coworkers, my father’s friends from the firehouse—came to offer casseroles and stories and an ache in their eyes that mirrored my own. Each story felt like both a comfort and a cruel refinement of what I’d lost: casual, human details that made them feel more real and more irreplaceable. At some point, while the afternoon thinly melted into evening, Conrad found me standing alone by a window, the light catching the rim of my eyes. He didn’t speak at first—he never did when words might crumble the good parts. He simply slipped his hand into mine, familiar and warm, and leaned his forehead against mine. It was a small, private thing; the world continued around us, but for a moment there was a pocket of silence that belonged only to us. Conrad,” I said, my voice a raw whisper. “I—” He put a finger gently to my lips and shook his head. “Don’t say it. Not here.” Instead, he gave me the kind of smile that had once made my chest lift—a soft, rueful thing that acknowledged what had been and what could not be salvaged. Then he hugged me kissed me on top of my head. The air outside was colder than I expected, carrying the bite of late autumn with it. The sky was a dull gray, heavy with unspoken sorrow, as though the heavens themselves mourned with me. A breeze stirred through the cemetery, rattling the branches of skeletal trees, their bare limbs clawing at the overcast sky. I walked between rows of gravestones, each one a silent reminder of lives already gone. My black heels sank into the soft earth with every step, grounding me, holding me in place when all I wanted was to collapse. Ahead of me, two caskets rested above open graves, waiting for their final descent. Phoebe slipped her arm through mine, her presence gentle yet unyielding. She hadn’t left my side all day. Her face was pale, her eyes red and swollen, but her grip was firm, steadying me when my knees threatened to give out. Conrad was there too—always there. He hovered close, his broad shoulders tense, his hazel eyes shadowed with grief he tried to mask for my sake. At one point, when I stumbled, it was his hand that caught me, his warmth grounding me in the cold, his voice a low murmur against my ear. “You don’t have to do this alone, D bear. We’ve got you.” That name again. A tether to a past that felt so far away. I wanted to lean into him, to let him carry this crushing weight for me, but I knew it wasn’t his to bear. Still, the way his hand lingered against mine told me he wished he could. I stood at the edge of the grave as the pastor’s voice droned on, each word blurred by the pounding in my ears. My gaze fixed on the polished wood of the caskets. This was it—the finality I wasn’t ready to face. People around me sniffled, dabbed at their eyes, whispered prayers. I could barely breathe. Phoebe squeezed my arm tighter. “It’s okay if you cry,” she whispered. “It’s okay if you fall apart.” But I couldn’t. My tears felt locked behind an invisible wall, pressing hard, threatening to break at the slightest crack. When the ropes groaned and the caskets began their slow, inevitable descent into the earth, something inside me shattered. My breath hitched violently, and suddenly the dam broke. “No—” The word escaped me, raw and broken, before I could stop it. My body trembled as sobs tore through me, uncontrollable and wild, as if grief itself had taken possession of my lungs. Phoebe held me, her own tears wetting my shoulder as she clung to me. Conrad moved closer, wrapping his arm around me from the other side, pulling me against his chest. Between them, I was held together, though I felt like I was coming apart in their arms. I watched through blurred vision as dirt was shoveled onto the caskets, the sound of earth hitting wood echoing in my chest like a cruel finality. Each dull thud was another reminder that I would never hear my father’s laughter again, never feel my mother’s gentle hands brush my hair from my face. Phoebe whispered prayers under her breath. Conrad pressed his forehead lightly to the top of my head, his arms tightening as if to shield me from the world. And still, the earth kept falling. When it was done, when the graves had been filled, flowers were laid gently atop the fresh mounds of soil. White lilies for my mother. Deep red roses for my father. Their beauty was fleeting, destined to wither, just like the life I had once known. My heart ached so violently I thought it might stop. “I don’t know how to live without them,” I choked out, the words barely audible. Conrad kissed the crown of my head, his voice a whisper rough with unshed tears. “Then don’t try to figure it all out now. Just… breathe. One day at a time. And if you can’t, then I’ll breathe for you. We both will.” Phoebe nodded, her hand gripping mine. “Always. You’re not alone, not as long as we’re here.” Their words didn’t heal me, couldn’t possibly touch the depth of my pain. But in that moment, between the graves of the people I loved most, they were the only things keeping me from falling completely into the darkness. So I stood there, broken and hollow, flanked by the only two people who still felt like home, as the world I knew was lowered into the ground. And for the first time, I realized—this wasn’t just goodbye. It was the beginning of something else. Something I wasn’t ready for, but could no longer run from.