A Celebration of Life is what everyone was calling it. The media. The Hawthorn family. My own friends and family...
It didn't seem like A Celebration of Life to me. No, not at all. To me, it seemed like the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, was really fucking dead. Poof. Gone. In the blink of an eye. Or in this case the "malfunction of a propeller" somewhere over Oregon.
The small private plane had apparently gone down in a particularly dense forest, leaving only its small black box and a shit ton of metal debris. No body...too much jet fuel for that.
I closed my eyes, reaching out to touch the cool polished cherry wood casket, with its perfect sheen. Even if Ethan wasn't in there, touching the slab of wood still somehow made me feel closer to him.
It'd been just a little over two weeks since those police officers had paid me a visit, and given me the worst news I'd ever received - horizontal on my couch.
Eli had held me as I screamed, the pain ripping through my chest, but I couldn't feel him. Hell, I couldn't feel anything. Just numb devastation, with a dose of depression, and leaky fucking eyelids.
"Avery?" My hazy eyes scanned past the black clad mourners to Ethan's mom, Patricia. She was lovely, even if this was my first time to meet her in person. Over her son's empty casket.
Her curly blonde hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, and her black dress and flats looked like she'd owned them for years. Her son's riches hadn't changed her wardrobe, or the warmth in her smile.
"I'm sorry, what?" I tried to speak, feeling like I'd swallowed a box of rocks. Their jagged little edges lined my throat, and sat in a pile in my stomach.
Patricia smoothed some hair from my face, and when she opened her mouth, she sounded like she was speaking to me from underwater - all muffled and garbled.
"I said, I'll meet you back at the house, darling." Her kind brown eyes were the same as her sons. Or like they used to be.
"Okay, yeah." I shut my eyes again and she moved her small hand to my shoulder as she passed.
That was thing about funerals, everyone was so touchy feely, when all I really wanted was for no one to touch me. Ever again.
Still, as the British family, that had flown in on perfectly safe airplanes passed, they reached out. Their accents sounding so much like Ethan's that I turned around a couple of times to see if he was here. That was the other thing about grief, you couldn't think clearly.
My fingers trailed over the coffin, as I stared at the enlarged photo of Ethan. It was taken somewhere around the time we'd started dating again. His blonde hair was a little longer than it'd been when he'd left for Montana. The last time I saw him.
He'd bent down to kiss me, not caring that it was almost noon, and I was still in bed with un-brushed teeth. I'd gotten home late from a modeling shoot, and climbed in bed, falling asleep immediately.
"I love you, Mrs. Hawthorn." He'd whispered into my hair as I reached for him.
"Only six more months, Mr. Hawthorn."
"One hundred and eighty-two days.
"Two hundred and sixty thousand minutes."
"But who's counting?" I grinned and he kissed me one final time. A fleeting kiss. A whisper of his lips on mine.
"I'll call you when I land. I love you."
"I love you too." I'd groaned and flopped over to go back to sleep.
YOU ARE READING
The Sweetest Summer
Romance**COMPLETE** Elijah West was everything, and I was just...Avery Adams. The tomboy, the girl next door, the friend zone occupant. The girl who somehow grew up while he was gone filming his television show. But this summer he's back, and the sparks a...
