Celeste stood up and moved toward him. Reaching him, she tiptoed and pressed a light kiss on his lips.
Dominic accepted it slowly. Shutting his eyes, as he deepened the kiss, and pulled her to himself.
One hand slipped around her waist, and the other cradled the back of her head with a careful tenderness, as though even this—her presence, her warmth—might shatter in his grasp.
"I’ve missed you," he murmured into the kiss.
He broke it slowly, lips trailing hers as if reluctant to leave. Then, he buried his face into her hair and took a breath that was not just air, but her.
"I was only gone for the night," Celeste laughed, her voice soft and light.
Dominic didn’t respond. His grip around her tightened as though it had been longer, as though ti with her moved differently. Fleeting when she was near, and unbearable when she wasn’t.
She eased away a little, her hands now resting on his chest.
"Do you have work after breakfast?" she asked gently.
He blinked at her, as if reentering the world. "Not much," he said. "Nothing that can’t wait. Why?"
She nodded, almost as though she expected that answer. She didn’t smile, neither did she look away.
"I want to take you sowhere."
Dominic stilled. He studied her face. There was sothing in her voice that made him soften more. There was a deep vulnerability maybe, or anticipation. Sothing delicate.
"Alright," he said, surprised but curious.
......
The ride was quiet.
Celeste didn’t say a word, and Dominic didn’t press. Her fingers were laced together on her lap, and her gaze was fixed out the window. She wore a dark blouse today, sothing plain, but she still looked like a dream the world hadn’t earned.
Dominic knew better than to break the silence.
When the car pulled into the cetery, sothing in him shifted.
He turned to her. "Celeste..."
She stopped the car, unbuckled her seatbelt with a quiet nod. "Co." She invited him as she walked out of the car.
He followed her through the neatly lined graves, the breeze gentle and scented with earth and wilted petals. They passed rows of nas, dates, and final ssages carved in stone. And then she stopped.
Her breath caught. She reached out, and traced her fingers gently across the na:
Isabel Monroe.
Beloved mother. Fierce heart. 1969 – 2020.
Dominic stayed behind her, silent, reverent. He had a bad thing for dead people. He always had a bad feeling while around graves. It’s like the sins of his past finally catches up with him, and he could see so of the people whose blood had tainted his hand crawling out of the graves to get back at him.
"This is the first ti I’m coming here," Celeste said quietly. "It’s been five years."
Dominic looked at her, startled.
She crouched, brushing a leaf away from the base of the gravestone. Her voice trembled, but not from sadness. It was sothing deeper. Guilt, perhaps. Or fear.
"When she died... everything went cold. Like sothing inside just... stopped." She didn’t look back at him. "I hated the world. I hated the pain. I hated how everyone expected to mourn publicly and properly when all I wanted was to disappear."
Dominic took a step closer. The crunch of leaves beneath his feet was the only sound.
"I couldn’t face her. Not when she was in a box, six feet under, behind this stone. I thought if I avoided it, maybe she wasn’t truly gone." She smiled sadly.
"Everyone stepped away after her death. It was hard. Extrely harder with no family or savings to fall back to,"
She stood slowly, still not facing him.
"But I couldn’t keep pretending anymore. Not after you."
Dominic’s brows furrowed. "?"
Everything felt like a movie to him right now.
She turned then. Her eyes were glossy but unfallen. "I t you, and I realized things don’t last forever. I realized that good or bad, we better live in the mont and brace ourselves,"
Dominic stared at her like sothing in the very foundation of him had shifted. It felt like she’ll forever know his soul.
She had chosen him to be with her in a mont this deep, this heavy. A visit she hadn’t dared make in five years. A step she had been too broken, too buried in grief to take before now. And yet, when the ti finally ca, it was him she brought. Not a sibling. Not an old friend. Not even a therapist. Him.
It didn’t make sense.
And yet it did.
Dominic opened his mouth, then shut it again.
"Why ?" he finally asked, his voice barely audible over the rustling trees.
Celeste took a breath. Her fingers twitched at her sides, brushing against her own thighs like they needed grounding. "Because I knew you’d get it."
He blinked, trying to stop the panic attack crawling up his skin. "Get what?"
"What it ans to carry ghosts." She smiled faintly, the kind of smile that was almost ashad of itself. "And what it feels like to never be able to bury them."
Dominic didn’t move. He just stared harder.
"I could’ve done this alone. But I didn’t want to be alone. Not this ti." Her lips thinned. "Also, I didn’t bring flowers for a reason,"
Suddenly, that was it. The dam cracked. He didn’t want the world to see him. He never did, because he knew they’d never understand. But her... Celeste....
He stepped forward, slow at first, like he might scare her off with the wrong movent. Then quicker, until he stood right in front of her, his hand rising, almost trembling, before he cupped her cheek with a gentleness that seed impossible for soone like him.
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t look away. Her eyes searched his, searching for permission, searching for sothing she couldn’t na but hoped lived in him.
"Celeste," he said, voice low, raw. He hesitated. He breathed roughly, like every single word he ever held back was about to leave his lips. "I love you."
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