Page 116 of Beneath His Robes

I felt the car door open beside me. Travis didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I took a long breath, my hands gripping the seat. When I finally got out, the air felt different, colder, as if the world around me knew something I didn’t.

I felt like I was walking in a dream, each step heavy, like I was being pulled toward something I didn’t want to face. But I couldn’t stop. I had to keep walking. Keep going.

The cemetery stretched out before me, rows upon rows of headstones marking lives lived and lost. But in the back, tucked away where the shadows grew long, was the one that mattered most.

Elias’s grave.

I couldn’t move for a moment. My feet wouldn’t obey me. It was as if my body had turned to stone, rooted to the ground like the trees around in a desperate attempt to avoid the truth.

Finally, Travis’s voice broke through the fog of my thoughts, quiet but firm.

“Ronan…he wouldn’t want you to suffer like this. He’d want you to say goodbye, to find peace. That man was all about savin’ people. Wouldn’t he want that for you?”

I nodded numbly, not trusting myself to speak. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to run—to escape this, to pretend it wasn’t real.

But I couldn’t.

The moment I stepped forward, I felt like I was sinking. The words I wanted to say were caught in my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

There it was…Elias’s name and the dates carved into the stone.

1998 –2025.

Only twenty-six years. Just shy of his twenty-seventh birthday.

He was supposed to be here with me.

Not in the ground. He was twenty-six fucking years old. It wasn’t fair!

I knelt down slowly, the ground cold beneath me, the pain in my chest threatening to suffocate me.

“Elias,“ I whispered, my voice cracking before I could even get the words out. “Elias, I…I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t know how to fucking exist without you by my side. You were supposed to stop running, remember? You chose me. And I chose you. But in the end, took you anyways.”

I closed my eyes, trying to push back the tears that were already building. I could barely see through the blur of them.

Why?

Why did this happen?

“I…I didn’t get enough time to tell you,” I choked out, the guilt slicing through me like a thousand knives. “I didn’t get to tell you how much I love you. How much you mean to me. I didn’t have enough time.”

I had always been afraid of showing too much, of feeling too deeply. And now it was too late. Elias was gone, and I couldn’t take back the things I hadn’t said enough.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my voice trembling, the words falling out like they were too big to carry or heavy to handle. “I failed you. I should’ve been better. I should’ve fought harder to get you out. I?—”

I gasped, choking back a sob, and my fingers trembled as they pressed against the cold stone.

“Elias…I can’t do this. I don’t know how to live in a world where you’re not here. I don’t know how to live without you. It hurts so much.”

The tears fell then, finally. I let them. I didn’t try to hold them back anymore. They poured down my face like a river, and I couldn’t stop them. Every sob, every gasp for air, was a reminder of how much I had lost, how much I would never get back.

It felt like the fire in the church. All my air was consumed into one section. Stolen by a burning force I couldn’t escape.

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” I gasped, the words a desperate plea. “Please don’t make me do this…”

But I knew I had to. I had to let go.

I had tolet him go.

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