Chapter 25
Levi
I wake slowly, Hayden’s arms around me, his shadows draped like cool ribbons across my chest. For a moment, I just breathe him in. Steady, warm, present. Then memory presses in. The grief. How it swallowed me.
How he stayed.
Hayden stirs, presses a kiss to the back of my head, then slips out of bed. I hear the hum of the coffee machine before he returns, offering me a hand. No words, just the quiet intent in his eyes: Let me carry you, just for today.
He undresses me with care, pulls me into the shower, and washes me methodically.
It’s intimacy beyond sex. Care and devotion.
It’s love, fluent without words.
And I think I understand now. Why people must fall for him, for the god of the underworld, for the man who carries death in his hands but still chooses tenderness. I close my eyes, letting the water rush over me, letting this man hold me up in case I need it.
Because right now, I think I do.
By the time he sets a plate of food in front of me…toast, eggs, coffee…the fog in my chest has eased just enough that I can breathe again.
Before he leaves, he lingers at the door. “There’s, uh…” He clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. “Irene leads a grief group on Thursdays at the community center.”
Oh.
His gaze flickers to mine, uncertain. “You don’t have to go. But if you ever wanted to, I could go with you. Or just…make sure you have the details. Your choice.”
I stare at him.
This man.
This impossible man, offering to sit in a grief group just so I’m not alone. I don’t know what to say. I reach for him, tugging him close, pressing a kiss to his lips that says everything I can’t yet voice. Gratitude, affection, the overwhelming realization that somehow, he’s become essential.
“Thank you,” I murmur against his mouth.
He smiles, hands settling on either side of my face for just a moment before he pulls back.
“I meant it when I said you’re not alone in this,” he says, softer this time, kissing me once more at the corner of my mouth.
When he leaves, most shadows follow. But a few remain, clinging to the edges of the space he left. For the first time, they don’t feel like remnants of Hayden. They feel like company.
· · ·
The donuts are staring at me.
Glazed. Sprinkled. Boston cream. Each one a frosted reminder that I’m stalling. It’s just fried dough, but somehow it feels like a moral crossroads.
Because what I’m really doing is buying time, trying to pretend I’m not about to walk into a room full of strangers and talk about the one thing I’ve avoided for twenty-odd years.
The latest draft of the garden proposal is spread across my kitchen table, notes and sketches half buried under a slew of new forms. I told myself I’d finish it before this meeting, but I haven’t been able to focus…
not when my brain’s been circling this moment over and over.
It’s been days since Hayden held me through the worst of it.
Since I cracked wide open in front of him in a way I never have before.
Since then, I’ve gone back to pretending.
I watered the plants on autopilot, made bouquets that all looked the same, laughed when Elijah or Dominic popped by.
I convinced everyone but myself that things were back to normal.
They aren’t. Not really.
But Hayden’s been incredible. He hasn’t tiptoed around me or treated me like glass.
He’s just been there. Showing up with my absurdly complicated coffee order.
Texting memes so unfunny they’re hilarious because I knew he dug through the depths of the internet just to try to make me laugh.
Wrapping an arm around me when I start to drift too far inside my own head. And god help me, I adore him for it.
But this? This I need to do alone.
Hayden offered to come with me. Of course he did. And for a moment, I almost said yes. But he just smiled when I told him no, pressed a kiss to my forehead, murmured, I’m so proud of you, and let me go.
So, now here I am. Alone. Agonizing over donuts like my entire emotional stability hinges on glaze versus sprinkles.
I sigh, panic-grab a powdered one for zero reason whatsoever, and turn toward the room where Irene’s class is about to begin.
The sign on the door asks for phones off and first names only. The chairs form a circle, deliberate and inviting. Not a lecture, but a conversation. Like we’re equals, just people trying to make sense of loss instead of strangers who have no idea how to live without someone we loved.
Irene sits at the front, clipboard resting on her knee.
Her expression is calm and composed, the kind of quiet confidence that makes you feel safe.
She doesn’t coddle or use that false “there-there” voice people cling to around hard things.
She just looks at each of us, acknowledging us as individuals, and I get the feeling she’s memorized every name in this room.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” she says, voice steady but warm.
“For those of you who are new here”—her eyes flick briefly to me—“this space is whatever you need it to be. Share as much or as little as you want. There’s no right or wrong way to feel.
” She leans forward, hands folded in her lap.
“No apologies for tears, tremors, or timelines. Whatever stage you’re in, however long you’ve been carrying it…
it’s yours. You don’t have to justify it. ”
I swallow hard, suddenly aware of the powdered donut in my hand. It reminds me of the garden somehow. The way everything here is allowed to exist as is. No pruning, no forcing things to bloom before they’re ready.
Around the circle, the discussion begins.
An older woman named Miriam speaks first, talking about how she still sets out two cups of coffee every morning, one for herself and one for her late partner. “I know she’s gone,” she says, voice thick, “but after fifty-two years of living with someone, I don’t know how to not make her coffee.”
Next, a man, late forties, dressed in work boots and a well-worn flannel, nods. “I lost my best friend earlier this year,” he says. “And I still reach for my phone whenever I hear a joke I know he’d love.”
A teenage girl, twisting a ring on a chain around her neck till it squeaks against the metal, speaks softly about her dad. About how people keep telling her she’ll understand things better when she’s older. Like grief is something she just has to grow into.
A woman probably in her sixties says, “I lost my dog two months ago. I know some people think that doesn’t count, but he was the only family I had.”
Irene nods. “Of course it counts.”
The conversation moves fluidly, stories overlapping, losses different but the same.
And then Irene looks at me.
“Levi,” she says gently. “Is there anything you’d like to share?”
I shift, toying with my napkin. “Oh, uh.” My voice comes out small. “It’s probably not a big deal…since it’s been a while.”
Irene shifts her head. “ ‘Not a big deal.’ ”
I force a smile. “I mean, it’s been years. Since I was a kid. So, it’s not like I’m…I don’t know. It’s fine.”
Irene doesn’t look away, but it’s Miriam who speaks from the seat next to me. “You’re here, young man.” Her voice is firm, holding no room for argument, like a grandmother calling your bluff before you’ve even opened your mouth. “Which probably means it’s not fine at all.”
I feel exposed and my throat tightens when I try to swallow. “It was my brother,” I say finally, voice barely loud enough to fill the space between us. “Brent. He was eight, I was seven. Car accident. It…it broke everything.”
There’s a pause, the kind that feels heavier than silence.
Irene nods, her expression unreadable. “And how did you process that loss, back then?”
I blink, thrown by the question. “I…I didn’t.”
She doesn’t look surprised.
“Why do you think that is?”
I lick my lips, suddenly wishing I’d grabbed a bottle of water instead of a donut. “Because I was the one left,” I admit, not a decibel above a whisper. “Because my parents lost their son, and I thought…if I was happy, if I was good enough, maybe it wouldn’t hurt them as much.”
Irene’s gaze softens, but she doesn’t let up. “Who taught you your grief wasn’t allowed? Someone else, or you?”
I exhale sharply, glancing at the ceiling, trying to will away the sting in my eyes. “Oh, um. No one, I suppose,” I admit.
Miriam presses a tissue into my palm, her hand lingering, as if to remind me that grief isn’t faced alone.
Irene clasps her hands together. “Levi,” she says, even-keeled. “What do you think would have happened if you weren’t happy? If you weren’t the good son?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
The answer is obvious.
“I honestly have no idea,” I whisper. “I guess I was too scared of what might happen if I stopped pretending.”
A beat passes before Irene opens the floor again, and the discussion moves on.
By the time class ends, I feel wrecked, jaw unclenched, ribs sore where breath finally found room. Like Irene took a hammer to the wall I’d built two decades ago and left me in the rubble. Every emotion pressing hard against my sternum, finally demanding peace.
Lighter isn’t the right word but looser is.
People linger, chatting, offering words of support. A man with kind eyes asks what to plant this time of year, as if gardening might heal us both. I answer with a recommendation for soil and my favorite hardy plants.
Normal things.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to do all along…help things grow where something was taken.
And then I step outside.
And stop short.
Hayden is here. Sitting on the steps of the community center, book in hand, one ankle resting over his knee. He raises his head when he hears the door, and when his eyes land on me, he doesn’t say anything. Just…looks at me.
Really looks at me.
“You came?” I ask, my voice too quiet, caught between surprise and relief. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He dog-ears the page. A spare coffee sits beside him, gone cold. He must’ve been here awhile. “Of course I did,” he says, like there was ever a coin flip.
Hayden reaches for my hand, lacing our fingers together.
And just like that, we’re walking. The air is crisp, the sky dark, the stars flickering just for us.
Neither of us says much, but we don’t have to.
His thumb is a metronome on my palm, steady as sunlight, and possibly for the first time in years, I think about planting something that’s just for me.
Ah.
So, this is what it’s like to not have to carry it all alone.