The Girl Before Eve by Lisa J Hobman (1)

“She simply lit up every room she walked into… Her beautiful smile was contagious…and her eyes…she showed every emotion in those beautiful blue eyes. My life…sorry…my life will be a whole lot darker without her in it. She had this amazing ability to make everyone she encountered feel cared for…loved even. She would have been an amazing mother… I just…I just know she would. She had that way about her. Always worried about others…never herself. She was one of a kind…my Eve…my beautiful, beautiful Evie. She was supposed to be my happy ever after…my forever…and she was taken…stolen… I’m so sorry…I can’t…” Adam’s breath caught in his throat and his legs weakened. With clenched eyes, he gripped the lectern for support.

The congregation sat silently as he spoke his heartfelt words. Tears trailed down each and every face. The forlorn and lost expressions of his closest family and friends told him their hearts were aching and broken, just like his own. The loss was too much. Too sudden. With a pain inside him that no one could even begin to understand, Adam returned to his seat, placed his head in his hands and let the pent-up emotion break free. His shoulders shuddered and the tears flowed unabashedly from his stinging, sore eyes. Arms came around him offering what little comfort they could, but nothing…no one could do anything to quell the ache in his chest. She was gone.

Nothing could bring her back.

All the if onlys and what ifs swirled around his head like a carousel spinning out of control, but what was the point? What was the point of anything anymore? His bright, wonderful future had been snatched away. The prospect of having children with her and watching them grow up, of growing old with her beside him, was gone.

Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah echoed around the vast space of the eighteenth-century church as Adam’s friends and family left the building with obvious heavy hearts.

Back at the house Lily walked into the kitchen where she found Adam staring out of the window over the pretty cottage garden. The glass of whiskey in his hand remained untouched. People talked in hushed voices in the lounge, but it appeared they had seen fit to leave him alone with his grief for a while.

Walking over to where he stood, she placed her arm around him, her hand on his left shoulder, her head on his right. She heaved a sigh. “How are you holding up, Adders?”

“Oh…you know…fair to utterly crap…you?”

She nodded. “About the same I’d say.” He hugged her to his side and she wiped her eyes. “Your eulogy was just so…beautiful. I know it’s a stupid thing to say, but she would have loved what you said about her.”

“Thanks, Lil. That means a lot.” His lip quivered, and he placed his glass on the worktop before rubbing his eyes. “It doesn’t feel real. I keep expecting her to shout down and tell me off for not replacing the loo roll, or to climb into bed beside me and stick her freezing cold feet on my legs to warm them up. Or snuggle up to me on the sofa whilst she pretends not to cry at some soppy ad on TV. But…that won’t ever happen again. I’ll never kiss her again…I’ll never hold her again.” He shook his head and whispered, “I’ll…I’ll never make love to her again. It’s all gone…she’s gone.” A deep sob broke free from his body.

Lily buried her head into his neck and held on tight as her best friend let his anguish and sadness pour out onto her.

Adam’s mother walked through from the lounge. “Adam, darling. Some of the…gosh what do you call them? Guests? Anyway…some people are leaving and I think maybe you should come and say goodbye.” Adam nodded and left the room.

His mother shook her head. “Goodness, what do you call people at something like this? Guests sounds so…happy. It seems wrong.” Confusion and salty water clouded her eyes.

Lily thought for a moment. “Friends. I think you simply call them friends. They all loved her after all, Gwen,” she said before standing and putting her arm around Gwen’s shoulders.

Gwen slid her arm around Lily’s waist. “Are you okay, dear? I know it must have been quite a shock for you. And I can tell you’re trying to stay strong for Adam…but she was your friend too.”

Lily’s lip quivered so she bit it. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. “Yes…she was…the best. But Adam is in bits right now. I’ll grieve in my own time. He needs me.”

Gwen kissed her cheek. “Lily, you are such a good friend. You always have been. I’m so glad he has you.” Her voice wavered.

Lily tried to smile. “He would do exactly the same for me.”

Gwen squeezed her hand again, nodding. “He would, dear. He would.” Gwen turned to go to her son.

In the lounge, family and friends surrounded Adam, patting his arm, hugging him and smiling sadly. It was all just too much. He wanted everyone to leave now. He needed to be alone. He had always hated being the centre of attention. That was always Eve’s place. She deserved it and handled it so well. She was interesting and fun. He enjoyed watching her from the sidelines, watching her work her magic, watching with adoration as others inadvertently fell in love with her, too.

Eventually, everyone apart from Lily left the house he had shared with the love of his life. Before the accident, it had been a home filled with love, lust, and laughter. Now, however, being here with his best friend just wasn’t the same.

Lily leaned against the doorframe and watched Adam as his six-foot-plus frame slumped onto the sofa. He huffed out a long, hard breath and loosened his black tie, undoing the first two buttons of his crisp white shirt.

He scraped a shaking hand through his thick, dark brown hair and ran the same hand over his face. “Well…that’s it, then. It’s official. I’m a widower.” He glanced up at Lily, his bloodshot eyes still glistening. Her heart ached for him. “What the hell do I do now?”

She walked over and sat beside him, nudging his shoulder with her own. “You carry on, Adders. You take a deep breath and you carry on. You’re twenty-nine. You have to move forward.”

Adam took a faltering breath. “I know. I do know… It’s just—”

“Hey, no one expects you to get over this in a week. There’s no time limit on grief, but just know that you have a long life ahead of you and you have to live it. Don’t disappear into your own head and never come out, okay?”

“No…I’ll try not to.” He turned to face her. “Thank you for everything. I mean it, Lil. Having you here…it’s just… I mean…just…thank you.”

She blushed. “Hey, I’ve told you before; we’re family, you and me. You need me and I come running. You’d do the same… Mind you…I have to find someone to love who actually loves me back first.”

He nudged her now. “You will. How could you not? Who could not love you, eh?”

Lily forced a smile. “Hmm, no one worthy of my time up to now, but I never give up hope.”

Adam looked thoughtful for a while. “The thing is…you’ll go back to working abroad for the TV station…and I’ll…I’ll be here on my own.” Tears escaped again and his bottom lip trembled.

It killed Lily to see him like this. Why did this have to happen? It seemed so unfair.

Taking his face in both hands, she stared into his eyes. “Look, I’m here for the next week. Then I’ll be here for Christmas. And in between that, I’m at the end of a phone or at the end of an email. I’m not leaving you. I’ll always be here for you, Adam. And if it all gets too much, then you just ask and I will come home.”

He covered her hands with his own. “Thank you.” He pulled her to him in a tight embrace and sobbed again.

Adam and Lily had been friends since…well…forever. They met at primary school, and from long before he told off Stewart Campbell for pushing her and pinching her snack, they had been inseparable. He defended her at every given opportunity. They were two halves of the same whole. Two peas in a pod. They were the couple most likely to become a couple at high school, but had never actually made the transition from friends to something more than that. Always together but…never together.

And here she sat by his side on the day of his wife’s funeral. Offering whatever she could of her time and closeness—anything to ease his pain and suffering. Taking time away from her job was not something she did lightly. But she would cross the fires of hell if he needed her and she knew he would do the same.