No flowers for the dead - Chapter 33: Chapter 33
You are reading No flowers for the dead, Chapter 33: Chapter 33. Read more chapters of No flowers for the dead.
After the burial, the world did not collapse.
The sun rose.
The wind moved.
The porch light flickered on at dusk.
And Alina woke up the next morning with his name still in her mouth, but no voice left to speak it.
⸻
Grief came in strange ways.
Not in the sobs or the shaking, but in the moments that were almost normal.
Setting two mugs on the counter before realizing only one was needed.
Reaching across the bed at night and meeting only linen.
Folding his shirts before remembering he wouldn’t wear them again.
But in those spaces, something else stirred too.
Love didn’t leave.
It changed shape.
It became muscle memory—how to tie Elara’s shoes the way Elias used to, how to answer her hard questions with gentle truths.
It became the way Alina touched the walls of the house he helped build.
The way she watered the garden he once called “their wilderness.”
The way she still whispered goodnight, as if he was just in another room.
⸻
Elara grieved differently.
She asked questions. Some small, some sharp.
“Do people know who he really was?”
“Not all of them,” Alina said.
“Will they ever?”
Alina smiled through her tears. “That’s not what he wanted.”
“But I want to tell them,” Elara said. “I want them to know how kind he was. How funny. How… safe he made me feel.”
“Then tell them,” Alina said. “But tell it your way.”
⸻
And so, she did.
Years later, Elara would become a writer—not of news, or business, or empire.
But of people.
Of soft kings who gave up thrones.
Of quiet women who taught them how.
Of legacies that didn’t glitter, but bloomed.
In her stories, she never used their names.
But anyone who had ever known Elias—or Alina—would recognize them in every word.
⸻
One summer evening, long after the world had moved on, Alina stood beneath the treehouse.
She looked up at it—the chipped paint, the vines growing along its edge.
Elara had moved out by then, but the house still stood.
So did the tree.
And beneath it, the soil hummed softly, as if memory itself had taken root.
She whispered into the wind, “I kept every promise.”
And maybe it was just the wind.
Or maybe something deeper.
But she could’ve sworn it whispered back:
I know.
The sun rose.
The wind moved.
The porch light flickered on at dusk.
And Alina woke up the next morning with his name still in her mouth, but no voice left to speak it.
⸻
Grief came in strange ways.
Not in the sobs or the shaking, but in the moments that were almost normal.
Setting two mugs on the counter before realizing only one was needed.
Reaching across the bed at night and meeting only linen.
Folding his shirts before remembering he wouldn’t wear them again.
But in those spaces, something else stirred too.
Love didn’t leave.
It changed shape.
It became muscle memory—how to tie Elara’s shoes the way Elias used to, how to answer her hard questions with gentle truths.
It became the way Alina touched the walls of the house he helped build.
The way she watered the garden he once called “their wilderness.”
The way she still whispered goodnight, as if he was just in another room.
⸻
Elara grieved differently.
She asked questions. Some small, some sharp.
“Do people know who he really was?”
“Not all of them,” Alina said.
“Will they ever?”
Alina smiled through her tears. “That’s not what he wanted.”
“But I want to tell them,” Elara said. “I want them to know how kind he was. How funny. How… safe he made me feel.”
“Then tell them,” Alina said. “But tell it your way.”
⸻
And so, she did.
Years later, Elara would become a writer—not of news, or business, or empire.
But of people.
Of soft kings who gave up thrones.
Of quiet women who taught them how.
Of legacies that didn’t glitter, but bloomed.
In her stories, she never used their names.
But anyone who had ever known Elias—or Alina—would recognize them in every word.
⸻
One summer evening, long after the world had moved on, Alina stood beneath the treehouse.
She looked up at it—the chipped paint, the vines growing along its edge.
Elara had moved out by then, but the house still stood.
So did the tree.
And beneath it, the soil hummed softly, as if memory itself had taken root.
She whispered into the wind, “I kept every promise.”
And maybe it was just the wind.
Or maybe something deeper.
But she could’ve sworn it whispered back:
I know.
End of No flowers for the dead Chapter 33. Continue reading Chapter 34 or return to No flowers for the dead book page.