Page 82 of Beneath His Robes

I couldn’t look at the coffin anymore.

My eyes drifted to the ground, to the soft snow-covered dirt, and I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. I let them fall, silent and heavy, until Elias gently touched my arm. It wasn’t an offer of comfort—more like a plea for understanding.

He knew I wasn’t ready for comfort. Not yet. He just wanted me to know that he was here. That, just like the weeks in the damn hospital bed, he was at my side.

“We’ll get through this,” he said softly. “I’ll help you through this, Ronan.”

The words settled over me like a blanket, a promise, even though I didn’t know how the hell we’d get through it. But for now, I let myself believe him. Just for a moment, I let myself believe that maybe, somehow, we’d make it out of this together.

And when I looked at him, there was something in his eyes—a sadness, yes, but also something stronger. Something that made me feel, for the first time in a long time, like maybe I wasn’t as broken as I thought.

Maybe I’d never be whole again.

But maybe, just maybe, with Elias beside me, I wouldn’t have to be.

The ceremony felt like it lasted an eternity, though I couldn’t have told you a single word that was spoken. The priest’s voice blended into the rustling of the trees, the faint shuffle of feet on gravel, the whispers of people who had come to pay their respects but didn’t truly know my mother. All these people were part of the problem.

All the fake smiles that knew Miranda wasn’t okay—the same people who saw her scars but never spoke up. My throat burned, and every part of me wanted to scream, to lash out, to tear the world apart for what had happened.

Mostly, I wanted to tear Jackapart at the seams for what he had done.

But I stood there, frozen, my eyes never straying from the ground. I didn’t want to look at the casket again. I didn’t want to see the finality of it, the reality that my mother, Miranda, was really gone.

Elias didn’t speak, didn’t push me. He just stood at my side, a steady presence, the only constant in a world that felt like it was crumbling around me. His hand brushed against mine, a small touch, a simple gesture of connection. And it was enough.

I wasn’t ready for more, but his quiet support gave me something to cling to, something to anchor me in the sea of grief.

At some point, people started to leave—the mourners.

The faces blurred, all of them feeling like strangers to me, people who didn’t understand, who only whispered behind my back when they felt I wasn’t looking. They didn’t truly know the woman I had lost. It was just the society of our small town to congregate and pretend we gave a shit about who was in the ground. I heard Elias’s soft voice beside me again.

“It’s time, Ronan.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. Not trusting that I wouldn’t break down in front of everyone, collapsing under the weight of everything.

I needed to leave.

I needed air.

I needed space.

With my last goodbye, I walked up to my mother’s casket, safe for the moment at least, while under the awning. But it only prevented snow from pelting down on my head, not the real dangers I faced.

I picked up a rose that was on her body. The petals felt soft in my grip, the only thing that seemed to hold my corporeal form in my broken, battered body. Her face looked so peaceful. Her eyes shut, and there was a gunk of makeup they smeared on dead people that she never actually wore herself.

I think she would have liked being presented like this. Displayed as a sleeping doll with no marks on the outside. Her bruises were all covered like they hadn’t existed in the first place. In the end, maybe she found true peace.

“Goodbye…Mom.”

Together, Elias and I walked away from the gravesite.

The others were still gathering around the casket, watching as Father Franklin finally closed the lid and began to lower her to the ground.

But I couldn’t stay any longer.

The weight of the loss was too much. I felt like I was the one trapped in the box, destined to suffocate underground. Every step away from the grave felt like it took me further from the small piece of my mother I still held onto for all these years.

The hope that she would someday be a better version of herself. That her smile would return, and her laughs wouldn’t be forced that she would be alive again. Truly living, not just surviving.

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