Chapter 11 Nadia
NADIA
The stranger had been coming here for weeks. Same time. Same seat beside mine.
Maybe he thought I didn’t notice. But I did.
I noticed everything—the scrape of his stool, the faint shift in the air when he walked in, the way the heat from his body bled into mine when he sat too close. Even when we didn’t speak, I could feel him there. A steady pulse at my side. Familiar. Dangerous.
Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we didn’t. Just the kind of small talk that fills silence without asking for anything in return. Weather. Coffee. Books we didn’t really read. It was safe that way—controlled. Predictable.
But tonight wasn’t. Tonight, I wasn’t.
Something in me had cracked before I even walked through the door. Today wasn’t just another day—it was the day. The one that circled back every year to remind me of my past. What I’d done. What I’d watched happen and couldn’t undo.
The past had claws, and it always found me.
No matter how small I lived, no matter how many routines I built to keep the darkness quiet, it still came back. Today it came roaring, dragging every memory with it. And I didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.
The silence between us pressed down like a hand on my throat. I could feel him watching, measuring, waiting.
“You look like you could use another,” he said finally. His voice was calm. The cup slid across the counter before I could protest. He didn’t rush. Didn’t fumble. Just nudged it toward me already knowing I’d take it.
I tried to joke. “That obvious?”
He smiled faintly but didn’t answer. He just looked at me with quiet patience, like he saw too much. I didn’t even know his name. But somehow, he’d become the one constant in this place.
Tonight, though, I couldn’t pretend. The weight was too much. Four years hadn’t dulled it. Grief had settled into my bones. I wrapped my hands around the cup like it could anchor me, but it didn’t.
I pushed my chair back. “I have to go,” I said, too quickly, too loud.
He said nothing as I left, but I could feel his eyes on me the whole way out.
The cold hit me hard outside. The air burned my lungs as I walked fast, nowhere to go but the only place that ever made sense.
The cemetery.
The gate creaked open, metal screaming against the quiet. I followed the path by instinct, feet remembering what my heart always tried to forget.
Her grave waited, quiet and wrong. The air felt colder there, thick with something that rejected my presence. The ground was slick with dew, the soil soft like it had been disturbed too recently. My knees hit the dirt before I could stop them.
Billie Underwood.
The name carved into the stone felt cruel. Final.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The words tore out of me, shattering the quiet. My forehead pressed to the cold granite. The silence answered back, thick and alive. I felt it crawl under my skin, whispering that I’d never be free.
I stayed like that, breath ragged, the taste of salt and soil heavy on my lips. My fingers dug into the damp earth, clawing at it like I could reach her if I just went deep enough. The smell of wet grass, of stone and decay, clung to me until I couldn’t tell where I ended and the grave began.
Time didn’t move. It just folded in on itself. My sobs came slower, weaker, breaking apart until all that was left was soundless shaking. The air burned in my throat, and every breath burned like a confession.
I whispered her name again. Once. Then again. Nothing. Only the wind moving through the grass, soft and cruel. I wanted a sign. A voice. Anything. But the dead don’t answer, and the living eventually stop trying.
So I stayed there, kneeling in the dirt, broken open and waiting for forgiveness that would never come.
And then I heard the faint crunch of gravel. I spun around, breath catching.
He was there. The man from the café. He looked out of place among the graves; tall, still, half in shadow.
“I was worried,” he said. There he was with that too calm tone again. “You seemed off tonight. I followed you. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
It should’ve scared me. A man following me into the cemetery should’ve sent me running. But I didn’t run. Maybe because I didn’t have the energy. Maybe because I’d been waiting for someone to finally see me.
“It’s today,” I whispered. “Four years.”
His eyes flicked to the headstone. He didn’t speak.
“I can still hear it,” I said. “The sound she made when she hit the ground. That thud, it doesn’t fade. It just stays.”
My throat closed, breath breaking apart.
“We were high,” I said. “Stacy was gone. Rita laughed. Billie wouldn’t touch it. She was scared, and Stacy hated that. She hated fear.”
I dug my nails into the wet grass. “They pushed her. Cornered her. She cried. Begged them to stop, but they didn’t.”
I shook all over. “I screamed at them. Told them to stop. They laughed. So I left. I thought leaving would make it stop.” A laugh escaped me, hollow and ruined. “It didn’t. It just meant she was alone when she died.”
I wiped at my face, but the tears kept coming. “I heard it minutes later. That sound. Her body hitting the concrete. I ran back and there was blood everywhere. I tried to save her, but she was gone.”
The night held its breath.
“I don’t know if she jumped,” I whispered. “Or if Stacy pushed her. I just know we all killed her. Every one of us who stood there and let it happen.”
My body folded forward as I turned to her grave again. “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “Billie, I’m so fucking sorry.”
The silence after was unbearable. And still, he didn’t move. He just stood there behind me, steady and unflinching.
“I’ve carried that night every day since,” I said. “And it’s killing me.”
The sobs came again. Ugly. Honest. Years of grief spilling out.
I didn’t know who he was or why he followed me here. I only knew he didn’t turn away. He didn’t speak. He didn’t leave.
He just stood there, listening.
And somehow, that hurt more than if he’d walked away.