As for now, we sat around the gravesite watching her body being lowered into the ground in her family’s plot. Ruby sat next to me, sobbing silently. I heard her whispering to the casket as it was descended, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I never understood their relationship, but I always had my suspicions there was something under the surface. After the last couple weeks, my suspicions became a little more cemented in truth, but that’s what death does. It exposes the frailest lies.

Murph and Ryder are in my periphery, both standing stoically in their black suits with cold, blank expressions on their faces. Murph’s friends are there too, the young one from the shop and the even more stern looking cop.

Murph’s gaze meets mine for a moment, and although there is no expression behind his stare, there is a sense of comfort in the contact.

I can’t shake the feeling that people are watching me. I haven’t seen the news reporter lady again, but I know that if she found me, it’s only a matter of time before Hugo does. He’s lurking, just waiting, ready to expose me and bring everything in my plan to ruin.

Once we get back to the house, I can feel the tension coming off of Murph. I wish he’d talk to me, look at me, anything. The pain of losing someone so close to you is real, raw—and not meant to be suffered alone.

I find him leaning against the downstairs bar, an empty glass in his hands. It feels almost like poking a bear when I glide my hand over his back. He tenses and then looks at me skeptically, as if he’s reading my expression.

“You okay?” I ask, but he answers with a shrug.

“This whole thing, what a fucking waste,” he grumbles.

“What do you mean? The funeral?”

“Yeah. What’s the point?” He turns toward me with a pained expression. “We lay people in the ground, and it seems cruel, like it’s just meant to hurt us. Watching them disappear into the ground like that. Fucked up.”

“I think it’s meant to feel like closure, like saying goodbye.” I say gently placing my hand on his arm. I should have known that he wouldn’t react well to being consoled.

He lets out a low growl.

“And she would love the party. You know it.”

“Sure,” he says, downing the rest in his glass.

Then I go out on a limb and decided to push a little deeper. All I want is for Murph to really open up. I want to know what lurks behind those sad eyes. Why? I don’t know. It feels like torture, to get closer to him although we are doomed beyond words. But with all of this time to wait for the will to be read, what else could I do?