4: I am alone, Ethan. That's the point

Mica pov

People say funerals bring closure.

They're liars.

There was no closure in watching the only person who had ever loved me unconditionally lowered into the ground. There was no peace in hearing strangers tell me she was "in a better place."

The rain hadn't stopped since the day she died.

Neither had I.

Black. Everywhere I looked, there was black. Black umbrellas. Black dresses. Black roses. It was as though the entire world had decided to mourn with us.

I stood beside Ophelia's white casket, unable to look away.

She hated black. She used to say funerals should have flowers in every color, because life deserved to be celebrated, even at the end.

"Don't let anyone bury me on a gloomy day," she'd joked once. "If I die, I want sunshine."

I looked up at the gray sky.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I couldn't even give you that."

Someone handed me a tissue. Selene.

"I know this is difficult."

"Everyone keeps saying that," I said, my voice hoarse. "Like there's a script."

"There isn't. I just didn't know what else to say."

"Neither do I."

She squeezed my hand and stepped back into the crowd.

The minister spoke gently. "Ophelia Ashcroft lived a life filled with compassion."

I smiled despite myself. She really had. She never forgot birthdays. She secretly paid strangers' hospital bills. She adopted injured animals Nyric pretended not to like, only to spoil them rotten when he wasn't looking.

The memory hurt. Everything hurt.

I forced myself to look toward Nyric. He stood perfectly still beside the casket. Tall. Immovable. His silver eyes never left her.

He hadn't cried. Not once.

"The Alpha King is unbelievably strong," someone whispered nearby.

I wanted to scream. They didn't know him. Strength wasn't the absence of grief. Sometimes it was simply refusing to collapse until everyone else had gone home.

The casket slowly descended. The sound of dirt hitting polished wood echoed through the cemetery.

My knees buckled.

"No... wait..."

Strong arms caught me before I hit the ground.

Nyric.

"I've got you," he said quietly. "You don't have to be ready."

We stood there long after the crowd thinned, saying nothing, as if refusing to blink would somehow stop this from becoming real.

Then it was over.

By evening, only the two of us remained at the grave.

"So many people," Nyric finally said, his voice hollow. "They all loved her."

"They did."

"I don't remember what half of them said."

"Neither do I."

He nodded once. Then walked away, without looking back.

I stayed. I didn't know why. Maybe because leaving meant accepting she was really gone.

After a while, I turned toward my car — and remembered her scarf, left behind on a chapel bench. I hurried back inside for it.

The chapel was dark now, nearly empty. I found the scarf quickly. Relief washed over me.

Then I heard it. A broken sound, like someone struggling to breathe.

I followed it to the front of the chapel, behind the altar, and froze.

Nyric was on his knees, his forehead resting against Ophelia's closed casket, his shoulders shaking violently.

"I tried..." he choked out. "I tried so damn hard. I should've saved you. I would've traded my life for yours."

I pressed a hand over my mouth to stop my own sob from escaping.

"I can't do this without you. You promised we'd grow old together. I don't know how to wake up tomorrow."

A long, shattered silence.

Then, very softly, "I don't want anyone else. I only ever wanted you."

I closed my eyes. This wasn't meant for me.

I quietly picked up the scarf and backed away. He never knew I was there.

By the time I got back to my apartment, I couldn't stand being inside it. Every corner reminded me of her — the mug she'd bought me, the blanket she'd knitted. I grabbed my keys before I'd even decided to.

My phone rang halfway to the car.

"Mica?" Ethan. "Alpha Nyric asked me to check on you."

"I'm fine." A lie.

"You don't have to sound okay. He just wants to know you're not alone tonight."

"I am alone, Ethan. That's the point."

A pause. "Call me if that changes. Any hour."

The call ended. I got in the car anyway.

No destination. No plan. Just away — from the silence, the memories, the pain that refused to let me breathe.

I don't remember choosing the bar. I remember the neon sign flickering through the rain-streaked windshield, and thinking that anywhere with people who didn't know my name sounded like relief.

Inside, it was dim and half-empty, the kind of place built for people who wanted to disappear for an hour. I ordered something I didn't taste and sat alone at the end of the bar, staring at nothing.

"Rough night?"

I looked up.

He was leaning against the bar a few feet away, dark hair, an easy half-smile that didn't match the sharpness in his eyes. He didn't look at me the way everyone else had all day — no pity, no careful sympathy, no waiting for me to fall apart so he could say the right funeral words.

He just looked at me like I was a person having a bad night. Nothing more. Nothing less.

"You could say that," I said.

"Buy you a drink, or is that a line you've heard enough of today?"

Despite everything, something in my chest loosened.

"Depends what you're offering."

His smile widened, and he slid onto the stool beside me like he already knew my answer.

"Whatever gets you through the next hour," he said. "I'm good at that."

I should have walked away.

I didn't.