Chapter Six
955 Words
Five Years Ago
The Day of the Funeral
Emma’s POV
The church pew was cold beneath her, polished smooth by years of grief. Outside, the Texas sun pressed against the stained-glass windows, casting warm reds and golds across the sanctuary. But Emma only felt the chill.
She sat near the back, fingers clenched in her lap, trying not to fidget. She hadn’t expected to come. She’d told herself not to. Told herself Jack wouldn’t want her there—not after how things ended.
But when she’d heard the news—when she’d learned Jack’s parents were gone in a blink, both of them taken in a car crash that made no sense—she couldn’t stay away.
She’d flown in quietly. No announcement. No calls. She hadn’t even packed a suitcase. Just came.
The moment she stepped into the church, her eyes had found him.
Jack sat near the front, his arm around a tiny girl in a black dress too stiff for comfort. Lilly. Only five at the time. She looked lost. Fragile. Like a porcelain figure left in a storm.
Jack looked worse.
Emma’s chest ached as she watched him. His shoulders were too still, too tight. His jaw clenched the way it did when he was barely holding it together. The boy she’d once kissed under firefly skies was now a man shaped by loss. Grief carved into the lines of his face like something permanent.
She wanted to run to him.
She wanted to slide into the pew beside him, wrap her arms around him, and whisper, I’m here. I never stopped caring. You don’t have to do this alone.
But she didn’t.
Because what right did she have?
Instead, she sat silently through the eulogies. Through the trembling voices and shaky prayers. And when it was over, she slipped out before anyone could see her—before Jack could.
Or so she thought.
Later that afternoon, in Gram’s kitchen, Emma sat at the table with a mug of untouched tea. Her hands shook as she tried to explain what she didn’t understand herself.
“I saw him,” she whispered. “At the church. He looked like he couldn’t breathe.”
Gram didn’t speak. She just let the silence settle.
“I wanted to go to him, Gram. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. That I—” Emma swallowed hard. “That I still care. But I left.”
Gram stirred honey into her tea slowly, gently. “Why?”
Emma’s eyes stung. “Because I broke his heart. Because I ran off to Washington like this town didn’t matter. Like he didn’t matter.”
“You left because you needed to,” Gram said quietly. “That doesn’t mean you stopped loving him.”
Emma blinked. “I never said I—”
“You didn’t have to.”
They sat in the quiet a while longer. Gram’s clock ticked in the corner, steady as ever.
“I saw the way he held Lilly,” Emma said softly. “Like he was trying to protect her from a world that just changed all at once.”
“He was,” Gram replied. “He still is.”
Emma looked down at her mug. “I think I messed everything up.”
Gram reached across the table and placed her hand gently over Emma’s. “You’re allowed to leave, sweetheart. But that doesn’t mean the door won’t still be open when you’re ready.”
Emma didn’t answer.
Because deep down, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be ready.
The sun was dipping low when Emma stepped out onto Gram’s porch, her suitcase already in the trunk of the rented car.
The wind stirred the pecan tree in the yard, its branches rattling like bones.
She paused on the steps, her hand resting on the railing that had once held a row of mason jars filled with wildflowers and firefly catchings. Jack used to wait for her there—barefoot, book in hand, always pretending he wasn’t looking for her.
She could still see him, in her mind. The curve of his grin, the weight of his gaze. The boy who had loved her with a quiet kind of loyalty she’d never known how to return.
She exhaled slowly, chest tight.
Gram had watched her from the screen door. “You sure this is what you want?”
Emma didn’t answer right away. Her eyes drifted down the street toward Main, toward the bookstore with its soft yellow glow still visible from here.
She thought about walking there. About slipping inside to find him restocking shelves or brushing dust off paperbacks or reading to a little girl who now clung to him like he was the only safe thing left.
But what would she say?
Hi. I’m sorry. I left you once and I’m going to do it again. I just came to make sure I still feel something.
No.
That would be worse than staying away.
So she nodded. “Yeah. I should go.”
Gram didn’t argue. She just gave that same look—the one that always made Emma feel both seen and forgiven.
“You’ll find your way back,” Gram said. “You always do.”
Emma forced a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Thanks for the tea.”
“Anytime, baby.”
As she climbed into the car and turned the ignition, she allowed herself one last glance back—at the porch, the house, the memory of a boy she couldn’t stop loving and a town she couldn’t seem to let go of.
Then she drove away, with every mile between her and Salado folding itself into regret.
- Writer
