He Said Losing My Emotions Was Better, Then He Begged Me to Feel Again novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Funeral Nobody Saw

The doctor said Orson should be in a hospital, and Orson said he would rather be in the barn.

So at midnight I climbed the loft ladder with a bowl of soup.

He lay on the pickers' cot with a cloth on his forehead.

I sat on the floor beside him and set the bowl down.

"Eat," I said.

"In a minute."

"Now."

He ate, slowly, and watched me over the spoon.

I had been carrying a sentence for five years, and I did not feel it as a weight.

I could only see its shape.

"You weren't at my father's funeral," I said.

The spoon stopped.

"Five years ago. I looked for you the whole service. I told myself you'd come late, and you didn't. That's when I stopped loving you."

My voice was level.

"I wanted you to know the exact day."

He set the bowl on the floor with both hands.

"I was there," he said.

"I looked."

"I stood across the road under the maple. I was there for the whole hour."

I stared at him.

"My mother said a Draper at a Clendenin funeral would be a scene," he said. "She said the families still hadn't settled the land. She said it would be a kindness to your family to stay away, and I believed her."

"You could have come in."

"I know."

"You could have put a hand on my shoulder."

"I know I could."

He sat up on the cot with the cloth in his fist.

"I could feel you looking," he said. "That's the worst of it. It isn't a thing I remember, Miranda. It's a thing I have now. You turned around in the pew every time the door opened. You did it until the end."

← Chapter 10 · All chapters · Chapter 12 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend