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.”