Page 25 of Beautifully Broken
Caleb
Present Day
There wasn’t nearly enough pickle.
I stared at the sandwich like it had personally let me down. Again.
It wasn’t bad, exactly. Just... wrong. The pickles were sliced too thin, the mustard a little too eager, pushing past its boundaries and bleeding into the center of the soft bread.
Everything looked the way it was supposed to, neat, pressed, assembled with care, but it was still off. Too clean. Too composed.
I lifted the top piece of bread with a small, hopeless flick of my fingers, like maybe, somehow, it had fixed itself since the last time. No such luck.
I grimaced. Not in disgust, more like muscle memory. A dull pull behind my eyes, a flicker of resentment in my jaw. And still, I took a bite. Because I always did. Because this had been Hannah’s sandwich.
Ham, American cheese, mustard, extra lettuce, no tomato. She used to call it her "grown-up lunch," always with a smirk, like she was in on a joke the rest of the world didn’t get. It was plain. Predictable. Not the kind of thing you remembered after a first date. But it was hers.
I didn’t even like mustard. Never had. Still, somewhere between the casseroles and the condolences, I started ordering it.
Somewhere after the echo of footsteps in the house became unbearable and the sympathy cards got packed into a drawer I never opened again, this sandwich just…
appeared. Became habit. Ritual. A quiet nod to the woman I loved.
Eating anything else felt like moving on. And I wasn’t ready for that.
A shadow fell across the table .
A familiar hand slid a warm turkey panini in front of me. It smelled good. Too good.
I looked up as Emily dropped into the seat across from me, her bracelets jingling as she unwrapped her salad.
She wore a yellow sundress that bared her freckled shoulders and a pair of worn cowboy boots I’d seen her in more times than I could count.
Her hair was twisted into a messy bun, strands tumbling free like they always did.
The sun caught the honey-blonde in them, and for a second, she looked like a country song; one of the hopeful ones, not the ones where someone dies.
“What is this?” I asked, already knowing.
She didn’t even look up. “What does it look like?” Her tone was pure exasperation, softened by years of friendship.
She’d been my best friend since we were six.
My person, my constant, the one who stood beside me when I married Hannah and stood by me again when she was lowered into the ground.
Emily had always been the light in the darkest places.
“You were dissecting that poor sandwich like it owed you money,” she added, stabbing a pecan in her salad.
“It’s not that I hate it.”
“But you don’t like it either.” She paused, giving me a look I knew too well. “And I’m not letting you keep eating ghost-food forever.”
Ghost-food.
The term lodged somewhere between my ribs. I stared at the panini. It was warm and melty and unapologetically not Hannah’s. My throat tightened as I reached for it. Eating this felt like betrayal. Like loosening another memory from the tight grip I’d kept on her.
The first bite was good. Too good.
Emily didn’t look smug, but I could feel the smirk simmering beneath her expression.
“You used to love those,” she said casually.
I did. Before everything. Before car accidents and white caskets and trying to remember how to breathe.
She let the silence sit, the way she always did, like it was allowed to exist without being fixed. That was something Hannah never understood. But Emily? She lived in the quiet with me. Filled it without speaking. Then she hit me with it.
"The ten-year reunion’s this weekend."
I blinked. “That’s this weekend?”
“Mmhmm,” she said, popping a cranberry into her mouth. “Saturday night. Thought you might want to come.”
I didn’t answer.
Crowds still overwhelmed me. Too many voices, too much noise, too much effort to be okay. I could handle one or two people at a time. Any more than that, and it felt like drowning.
“You don’t have to decide right now.” Her voice was softer. “But I think it might be good for you.”
“Because nothing says healing like name tags and awkward small talk?”
She laughed, bright and effortless. “Exactly.”
She stood, brushing a crumb from her skirt. Her bracelets jingled as she picked up her tray. “Think about it, okay? And now,” she made a face, “I have to go show the Johnsons the Bradford house for the fifth time. They need to just buy it already.”
She was halfway to the door when she paused, turned slightly, and nodded at someone behind me. “He’s all yours.”
Nate.
I didn’t have to look to know. He slid into the seat across from me like he owned the place. Coffee in hand. Cookie already half-gone.
“Ambush or divine timing?” I asked.
“Both,” he said with a grin. “I mean, you’re still a flight risk, so we’re covering our bases.”
I shook my head, but the corners of my mouth lifted. Slightly. “She wants me to come to the reunion.”
“Figured.” He took a slow bite. “You gonna?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready.”
Nate wiped his hands and leaned forward, elbows on the table.
His tone shifted. “You know I lost her too.” My chest tightened.
We didn’t talk about that day. Not often.
But we both lived with the fallout. “She wasn't just your wife,” he continued. “She was my sister. My twin sister. Gone in one god-awful heartbeat. And yeah, it still guts me. But I’ve had time to think about what she would’ve wanted for us. ”
I swallowed hard. I knew what was coming.
“I don’t think she’d want you eating a sandwich you hate while hiding from people who still give a damn.”
The words weren’t cruel. They were clean. Honest. Nate had a way of slicing through the mess.
“You don’t have to put on a show,” he added. “Just show up. See some old friends. Let people love you a little.”
I looked at what was left of the panini. Maybe it wasn’t about forgetting Hannah. Maybe it was about remembering I was still here.
“I’ll think about it,” I said quietly.
“Just come,” Nate said, standing.
I watched him go, the summer sun slanting through the window, warming my hands.
Maybe showing up wasn’t about letting go.
Maybe it was just letting the light in again.