Page 116 of The Compass Series

STELLA

I hate this.

Kevin would’ve hated it, too.

“Throw me into the ocean and let the mermaids take me away,” he’d said to me when I was a kid. It was right after Mom’s funeral, and the sadness seemed too much for him to handle. Kevin wasn’t one to show much emotion, but I’d never witnessed something sadder than his breakdown after Mom’s passing.

Since they were so close, I always assumed it was like him losing a family member of sorts. Now that both were gone, I felt a bit homeless and uncertain about what to do without the two people who raised me. At least I still had Grams.

I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to make it since Kevin’s passing without her. I struggled with waking up for the past few mornings. It seemed that each daylight led to darker nights.

You ever felt as if something reached into your chest, pulled out your heart, repeatedly slammed it against the ground, took a sledgehammer to it, and then sent it through a paper shredder?

Then they had enough nerve to place it back inside of your chest, completely shattered and damaged beyond repair.

That was what grief felt like to me. It felt like a slammed, hammered, paper-shredded heart.

First Mama and now Kevin.

Kevin Michaels was like a father to me. He went above and beyond to be there for me, and now he was gone.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Most of the time, I felt as if I were living in a state of denial, trying my best to search for the silver linings in life.

Still, some days it was harder than others.

“Breathe, darling,” Grams said as her hand fell to my lower back. The bit of comfort her touch brought me was very much needed, as I was seconds away from crumpling.

“You’re not listening,” Grams repeated, rubbing her hand in a circular motion. “I said breathe.”

I let out my breath.

Even though I held much love for Kevin, I knew Grams’s love for him ran deeper.

She’d known him his whole life. She was his second love, after his own mother, being his nanny from the first month of his life.

When Kevin was too old for a nanny, his family hired Grams as their house manager.

Grams said a house manager was just a fancy way to say maid, but she knew they called her that out of respect.

Everyone knew Grams as exactly that—the elder of the family. The place of Zen. The guardian angel sent to walk beside us all and remind us to breathe. She was that for Kevin, that for my mother, and that for me.

“I just don’t understand. One day, he was here, and then the next…

” I whispered as we stood in front of the casket.

My hand stayed wrapped around the necklace sitting against my neck.

It was three seashells. After Mama passed, I added her seashell to my necklace and felt as if she was always with me whenever I placed my hands around it.

It broke my heart that the other day I added Kevin’s, too.

“Life has a way of moving faster than we’d like,” Grams stated.

“At least he’s no longer in pain.” She placed her hands against the casket and said the same prayer she recited over Mama’s.

“One with the earth, one with the sea, may the waves of the ocean bless you be. May you find peace on your next journey, Kevin. Blessings forever.”

“Blessings forever,” I whispered in agreement. Grams had instilled in me that when two or more agreed on prayers or manifestations, they held more power. Therefore, my echo of “blessings forever” was to make sure Kevin’s soul was at peace in the afterlife.

“I was changing his diapers so many years before I began to change yours,” Grams said, lowering her head. Her hand stayed on the casket for a few seconds more. Her body was curved at the shoulders, and it looked as if she had the weight of the world sitting against her. “And now he’s gone.”

The sadness she tried to shelter me from ever witnessing seeped into her eyes.

“Grams,” I whispered, getting choked up as I watched her eyes flood with emotions.

She always tried her best not to cry in front of me.

She felt as if she was the head of our unique family and it was her responsibility to always remain strong, but after losing a son-like figure in her life, she was cracking.

She sniffled a bit and pulled out a tissue from her purse to dab at her eyes.

“I’m okay, sweetheart. I’m just going to step out for some fresh air.

” She began to walk away, and when I went to follow her, she held her hand up to stop my advances without looking back at me.

“Give me time, my love. I’ll be all right. ”

She continued on her way. Placing my hand on the casket, I closed my eyes and whispered the same blessings Grams shared earlier.

“One with the earth, one with the sea, may the waves of the ocean bless you be.” It was a saying that’d been in my family for as long as I could remember.

You didn’t only use it during dark moments.

We said those words during our celebrations, too.

They stood as a blessing for our loved ones.

It meant that no matter where you went and no matter where you traveled, the blessings of the earth and the water would always surround you.

The natural world was your protector and those blessings would always be with you, during the good and the bad.

When I opened my eyes, I jumped a bit out of my skin when I turned to see a man, dressed in the darkest blacks of blacks standing beside me.

He stared down at the casket with such an intense look of disconnect.

An overwhelming sense of familiarity hit me as I looked his way.

My stomach knotted up, and my mouth became dry as I stared at the stranger.

Seeing them both beside one another made it so extremely clear to me.

He looked so much like Kevin.

From his height to the perfectly groomed beard and right down to his eyes.

My gosh, those eyes. His eyes were so blue, like Kevin’s.

But unlike Kevin’s, whose eyes matched the ocean on the calmest of days, this man looked as if they were crafted during the hardest of storms. A shiver raced over me, and I was gobsmacked as I stared at the man who ruined my morning, who still had a scone crumb resting against his beard.

“You!” I whisper-hissed.

He sighed. “You have to be kidding me.”

I couldn’t even gather my thoughts because nothing was adding up.

“Did no one ever teach you that it’s rude to stare?” he dryly remarked, his voice deep and husky without a lick of kindness.

Definitely not Kevin’s voice.

Definitely not Kevin’s gentleness.

Definitely, definitely Kevin’s eyes.

“What are you doing here?!” I barked, annoyed by his existence. Annoyed that he reminded me so much of Kevin. Annoyed that he ate my freaking scone.

“What do most people normally do at funerals, lady?”

“Stella.”

“Again, don’t care.”

“Sorry, I… you…” I shook my head, trying to pull myself together.

“He’s old,” he mentioned, looking down at Kevin. “I didn’t expect that.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged. “Shit, I don’t know. He’s just… older than I thought.”

“You shouldn’t curse in a church.”

“Shit, my bad,” he sarcastically remarked.

What a jerk. But still, it kind of made me laugh a little.

I narrowed my eyes. “How did you know Kevin?”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.” I let out a sarcastic laugh. “One of my favorite pastimes is going to random people’s funerals.”

He stared at me blankly.

“It was a joke,” I mentioned, “but clearly not a funny one, I suppose. Perhaps jokes at funerals are frowned upon. Not by him, though,” I said, gesturing to Kevin’s casket.

“He doesn’t do much frowning at all anymore.

” I laughed. “That was another joke,” I said.

“But I guess not a funny one, either. Okay, how about this? Knock, knock?”

He kept staring, seemingly uninterested.

I finished the joke on my own because when situations became awkward, I liked to kick them even deeper into the land of uncomfortableness. “Who’s there? Not Kevin, that’s who. Because he’s dead. Ha-ha. Get it? Funeral jokes.”

He blinked.

He grimaced.

He looked away from me.

“For a man who crashes funerals, you sure don’t have a funny bone,” I mentioned. Oh my gosh, what was wrong with me? I was blurting out the most random, awkward things to this stranger who showed up to a funeral for a man he hadn’t even known.

Yet he looked strikingly familiar in the most comforting way.

Stop talking, Stella.

I cleared my throat and smoothed my hands over my dress.

“I’m sorry. I awkwardly laugh at uncomfortable situations.

Plus, Kevin and I always had a bit of a morbid sense of humor.

And, well, I—why did you eat the scone?” I spat out as my lips moved as quickly as my thoughts, which led to the train wreck.

“Not this again.”

“Yes, this again. You didn’t even want it!”

“If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have ordered it.”

“Yes, but you didn’t even cherish it! You pretty much wasted it in an attempt to be petty.”

“What can I say? I’m a petty guy.”

“You’re an asshole. That’s what you are.”

“You shouldn’t curse inside a church,” he mocked.

“Shit, my bad,” I replied.

He released a short laugh. “I’m not an asshole. I just?—”

“Have asshole tendencies, yeah, yeah, yada yada. You’re also a weirdo, you know. For showing up at a funeral for someone you didn’t even know.” I paused. My heart began racing as my hands flew to my chest in a panic. “Oh my gosh, I get it.”

“Get what?”

“You’re stalking me!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re stalking me! Did you follow me here?”

He sighed. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“It only makes sense!”

“It only makes sense that I’d want to stalk you at some dead guy’s funeral? Do you think that highly of yourself?”

“I don’t lack self-esteem, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve come to think that I am a very stalkable individual. People would kill to stalk me. Or they might kill me while stalking. It’s a toss-up, really.”