It should’ve been.
But the man who stepped out of the driver’s seat made my heart stop.
He straightened slowly, like the years were heavy on his shoulders. The sun hit his face, and for a moment my brain refused to accept what my eyes were seeing.
Thirty years ago, I stood in front of a closed casket and buried the only boy I had ever truly loved.
Gabriel.
He was seventeen. I was sixteen.
Small-town cliché, people used to say.
Me — the mechanic’s daughter.
Him — the son of one of the richest families in the county.
His parents had never liked me. They never said it outright, but I could feel it in every polite smile that never reached their eyes.
Then the fire happened.
Gabriel had gone to his family’s lake cabin. According to the official report, he’d fallen asleep without putting out the fireplace.
The place burned to the ground.
The body was identified through dental records. Closed casket. No viewing.
At the funeral his parents barely looked at me.
Later they said Gabriel had been preparing a surprise for me that night. Something romantic.
And that somehow made it my fault.
I carried that guilt for years.
Therapy. Moving away. A marriage to a man I never truly loved because everyone said it was time to move on.
But I never forgot Gabriel.
Now I’m forty-six. My father is gone. My marriage ended quietly a few years ago. I live alone in a small cul-de-sac where nothing dramatic ever happens.
Until the morning the dead man moved in next door.
The watering can slipped from my hand when I saw him.
Same jawline.
Same eyes.
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