Page 37 of Only ever you-Ana & Byron
"And try not to slobber on my shirt, Bartolini. This suit cost a pretty penny."
And for a few minutes, they weren't old friends or wounded strangers.
They were just Ana and Byron.
***
Chapter seventeen
Chapter 17
Two Years Later
The church was silent.
Byron's father had survived for years despite the odds, years after the worst of the cirrhosis had claimed his strength. What remained of him had dwindled in a care home bed, hollow-eyed and skeletal, not really aware of what was going on around him.
The casket was closed.
Ana sat in one of the back pews, her black coat crisp, her dark hair pinned back. She hadn't seen Byron since Cadi and Gray's wedding, though they did send stilted text occasionally . But today wasn’t about old wounds. Today was about honouring the man who once saved her father's business with a quiet loan and an even quieter pat on the back.
Up front, Byron sat between Gray and Sylvia.
He was stone-faced in his black suit, jaw set like it was carved out of stone. Gray sat solid at his side, eyes fixed forward, and Cadibeside him, pale and graceful. Sylvia was striking -beautiful hazel eyes, lustrous brown hair pulled back in a bun. She sat perfectly still in her police uniform, steel beneath the silk.
No one cried. The long period of illness had whittled away at the sorrow to leave a strange kind of acceptance.
At the gravesite, the minister said the final blessing.
The casket was lowered. The sound of the mechanisms, the scrape of dirt.
Each mourner stepped forward with a handful of earth.
When Ana approached, Byron gave her a quick look before holding out his hand blindly. She took it.
He gripped it like a lifeline.
They stood in silence as the dirt hit the wood.
Among the crowd, Ana saw a familiar face standing near the back, apart from the others. She was older now, but still striking. Her features still held the echo of youth- high cheekbones, graceful posture, and eyes the same shade of hazel as Sylvia's and Byron's. Her long brown hair had been twisted up with careful elegance, and her red lipstick was beginning to crack at the corners. A string of pearls sat snugly at her throat.
She looked at Byron and Sylvia with open longing, each glance laced with unspoken regret.
But they never looked back.
Byron's eyes never lifted. Sylvia didn't so much as blink in her direction. It was as if she wasn't there at all.
Ana's parents stood quietly near the trees, observing with the calm sympathy of those who had lived long enough to understand the complexity of grief.
After the final prayers, Ana stepped away and caught Sylvia in a tight hug. Sylvia hugged her back, stiff at first, then fiercely. She nodded once, chin trembling. Ana didn't say anything. Some things didn't need words.
Behind them, the woman with the pearls took a single step forward, hope flickering in her eyes like a match.
No one turned.
She stood in her heels and silence, watching her children walk away just like she had walked away many years ago.
***
