Epilogue Liam
EPILOGUE
LIAM
Six months later…
I STAND AT THE GRAVE, MY BOOTS SINKING INTO THE FROSTBITTEN grass, hands buried deep in my coat pockets. The headstone is simple. Her name and the dates, her lifespan too small to swallow.
LOVED BEYOND WORDS. MISSED BEYOND MEASURE. ABIGAIL ST. JAMES.
For a long time, I say nothing. Just breathe.
The wind cuts across the cemetery, carrying the faint scent of earth and winter. The scar my father gave me with a broken beer bottle—the one newly erased with surgery—itches underneath my skin, but it’s nothing compared to the way this place makes my chest ache.
“I never said goodbye,” I whisper. “I never knew how.”
I crouch and run my fingers over the headstone with a gentleness I shouldn’t be capable of. The same way I touched her hair when we were kids. The same way I touched Geneva’s face the night she said “yes.”
“We’re leaving.” My throat tightens, but I force the words out. “Geneva and me. Somewhere no one knows us. No one knows me. No headlines. No Ghost. Just us. She deserves that.”
The breeze rustles the dead leaves, like the world’s giving me permission. Like Abby is agreeing.
“I’ll carry you with me. Always. But I have to go. I have to move on.”
I close my eyes, and for the first time since I lost her, I feel like I can. Like I’m ready.
When I stand, I press my palm flat to the stone. “Goodbye, Abby.”
I stand and then walk over to my wife. Geneva is a few rows over, her coat drawn tight, her head bowed. The wind tangles her hair, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She whispers something I can’t hear, something meant only for her parents.
When I reach her, I slide my arm around her waist and pull her in close. She leans against me without a word.
“You okay?” I murmur against her temple.
She nods, but I feel the tremor that snakes through her body. I shift so I can see her face, see her eyes. They’re wet but strong, the way she always is, even when it breaks her.
“I said what I needed to say,” she whispers. “And I asked them to watch over Abby until we come back to visit.”
She flicks her gaze to my sister’s plot. The place where I watched Geneva years ago. The place where I fell into obsession, then lust, and finally love.
“Thank you,” I say softly. “It’s good for me to know she won’t be alone.”
Geneva takes my hand in hers, her fingers immediately running over my wedding ring. It’s her latest tell. She does it whenever she’s feeling emotional, which is quite often.
I press my lips to her hair. “Your parents would be proud of you, Doc.”
Geneva’s shoulders shake with a breath that’s half sob, half relief. “I think so.”
I pull her closer, my hand firm over the curve of her belly. Beneath my palm, I feel the faintest kick, our daughter reminding us that life keeps going, no matter how much grief tries to anchor us here.
Geneva wipes at her eyes, but the tears don’t stop, and I don’t ask her to. She’s earned them. We both have.
“I asked them to look after us too,” she says quietly, voice tight but steady. “Because we’re going to need it when the baby comes.”
“They’re already watching over us. And little Abby Margaret.”
Abby is from my sister, and Margaret is from Geneva’s mother. Our daughter is a reminder that grief isn’t the end, that sometimes it’s where love begins. And grows.
I lean down, kiss the top of my wife’s head, and splay my fingers over her belly like I can shield them both from the world with just my palm.
I might’ve buried Ghost, but he isn’t gone.
He’s waiting. Beneath my skin. Beneath my promise to cherish and protect.
But if Geneva ever needs him again, if she so much as breathes a name in the dark, I’ll dig Ghost up with my bare hands.
Because I’ll still kill. But now, it’s for her. And only her.
Geneva leans into me, and we stand like that, just breathing. Just being. And when the wind tugs at us, when the world tries to pull us back into its chaos, we don’t let it.
And for the first time, we’re not running from something.
We’re running toward it.
Toward us.