Chapter Forty-Eight
The church was a tomb with a better soundtrack. Polished wood pews. Stained glass windows bleeding soft, broken light onto hollow faces. The kind of old stone place that made you feel like God wasn’t coming — he was already dead, and nobody had bothered to mention it. Tuesday morning smelled like damp stone, lilies, and cheap men’s cologne. Ryan sat stiffly in the front pew, his hand wound tight in Evan’s — not holding, anchoring. Evan didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to. His thumb traced small, grounding circles against Ryan’s pulse point. Leila sat a few rows ahead with her fiancé — a clean-shaven, tight-smiled man in an ill-fitting suit who kept tugging at his collar like it was strangling him. Owen stood near the altar. Not fidgeting. Not pacing. Just there — heavy, immovable,
- Writer
