Chapter 62: Chapter 62
Music Recommendation: Photograph by Ed Sheeran
......
I love you!
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted like she’d forgotten how to breathe.
Dominic didn’t stop. He couldn’t. It was like the words had been rotting in his chest for too long, and now that they were out, there was no putting them back.
"It’s ruining my life not being able to say it," he whispered. "I walk around like I’m okay, but I’m not. I haven’t been since you touched me the first time like I wasn’t already broken. Since you made me laugh when I didn’t even remember how my voice sounded when it was happy. I haven’t been okay since you looked at me like I wasn’t just another monster trying to outrun his past."
Celeste’s chest rose, sharp and shaky. Her hand found his wrist, curled lightly around it. She didn’t know what to say. She tried to play it cool, but she knew she also needed him the way he needs her.
"You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be," he breathed. "And I’m terrified of touching you too hard in case you disappear."
Silence hung between them.
And then—
Celeste moved. Slowly, she leaned into his hand, pressing her face into his palm like she was melting into it. Her lashes dipped, her eyes glossy.
"I didn’t expect you to say that," she whispered.
"I know."
"I thought I was the only one feeling like the world would stop if you ever left."
Dominic exhaled sharply.
She gave a breathy laugh, but it broke into something softer. It sounded like a laugh between a sob.
Dominic didn’t push. He didn’t try to hold her tighter or steal the moment. He let her stay there, quiet against him, as the cemetery held them in an odd cocoon of stillness.
"You know," she said at last, lifting her face just enough to meet his gaze, "when I drove here this morning, I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. I told myself if I turned at the gas station, I’d take it as a sign. But I didn’t. I drove straight."
Dominic’s lips twitched. "You were going to let a gas station decide your fate?" He laughed. His smile was so wide that the corners of his eyes crinkled.
She smiled. "I was scared."
Dominic smiled. He pulled her into his arms without another word. She didn’t say it back, but that didn’t count. What mattered was that he finally let it off his chest without scaring her away.
Dominic held her close, his fingers slowly brushing up and down her spine as if memorizing her shape. He wanted this moment to stretch a little longer.
"I’ve never thought about coming here. Not to mention coming around with someone," she murmured into his chest, voice muffled.
She remember telling Amara she didn’t know where her mother was buried, just to avoid the conversation.
"I figured," he said gently, not moving. "It’s not exactly a place people share unless they mean it."
He leaned back, just enough to look at her face, and to study the curve of her jaw and the way her eyes lingered near the gravestone as though still unsure if this counted as goodbye, or something else.
"I think she would’ve liked you," Celeste said, brushing a lock of his hair behind his ear. Her voice was lighter now, but her eyes weren’t.
Dominic tilted his head. "Really?"
The thought of someone else except his mother liking him blew him off. He didn’t even dare imagine Celeste ever will.
She nodded. "You’re quiet and intense. Kind of intimidating, in a way she would’ve enjoyed teasing me about."
He chuckled softly.
"But mostly," Celeste added, "you’re... gentle when it counts. That’s rare. She told me not to settle for anyone who didn’t see through me. Not just the good parts, but all of me. She said, ’Fall in love with the person who doesn’t flinch when you cry ugly.’"
Dominic swallowed, his eyes never leaving hers. "I see you, Celeste."
Her gaze flicked up to meet his.
"I don’t flinch," he added, softly.
Her lips parted. Then she smiled faintly. She looked away for a moment, toward the headstone.
She pulled away from him for a moment, and bent to the grave. "Mom," she whispered, with a quiet sort of reverence. "I know this is late. I know I should’ve come sooner. But I needed time to grow into someone you’d be proud of. And..." She glanced at Dominic, reaching for his hand. "I brought someone. Someone I’d love to be with,"
Dominic’s grip tightened ever so slightly around her fingers.
She placed a hand on the cold stone. The wind whispered through the trees, soft and full of memories. She didn’t cry, not anymore.
She didn’t want to have to haunt this place. She would have been here everyday, but she didn’t have it in herself to come with grace.
"I missed you," she said quietly. "And I’m sorry I stayed away so long."
Dominic stayed back a little, watching. He didn’t interrupt. This wasn’t his moment. It was hers. All of it.
Even from a distance, his chest swelled with a pride he didn’t expect, and something dangerously close to reverence. She chose him. To stand beside her while she laid down the last piece of her pain.
Celeste stood again, brushing dirt from her jeans, and gave a small sigh. "Okay," she whispered. "That’s enough for now."
Dominic smiled, and knelt. He stared at the grave for a moment, then began to quietly pick at the little grasses and weeds clinging to the stone, his fingers brushing dirt aside with a strange gentleness.
"What are you doing?" Celeste half-yelled, as a strange type of tightness formed in her throat. Her heart hammered, her eyes wide with something between confusion and terror. "Dominic... what are you doing?"
He didn’t look at her. He kept his focus on the ground, slowly combing through the thin overgrowth like he’d done it a hundred times. "Cleaning this place," he said calmly, like it wasn’t already shattering her. "She’ll need it."
Celeste didn’t speak.
She couldn’t.
The tears she had been holding back quietly spilled down her face without warning. She wasn’t even sure when they started. She blinked, and the world blurred.
Her lungs ached.
He could hire a team. Hell, he could hire a whole community. He could call a gardener, a landscaper, or simply pay someone to polish the stone and plant roses all around it. It wouldn’t take him more than five minutes to make it perfect through someone else.
Yet, he chose to kneel. With his bare hands. With dirt on his skin. He was brushing dust off a name that had nothing to do with him.
She didn’t know what to do with that kind of tenderness.
The grass wasn’t even thick. There wasn’t much of it at all. There were just scattered pieces that nature had laid gently around the edges of the grave, almost apologetically.
Her chest stretched too wide for her ribs, and her knees buckled. She dropped to the ground beside him, wordless.
The grass was dry, poking through the fabric of her jeans, but she didn’t care. Her hands trembled slightly as she joined him in clearing away the smallest, most invisible weeds. Her fingers brushed his once, and he didn’t pull away.
They sat in silence. Just the two of them. Kneeling in front of a stone slab that meant far too much.
Celeste’s voice came as a whisper. "You didn’t have to."
"I know," Dominic murmured.
"I texted someone earlier," he added softly, reaching for a little moss creeping over the base of the gravestone. "They’ll bring flowers. She should have flowers, even if she’s not here to see them."
Celeste’s breath caught in her throat.
"She liked tulips," she whispered.
Dominic smiled. "I guessed that."