Nathan’s POV...

The place was silent - full of the people of the town, and yet wordless, everybody too much in disbelief to speak, everybody wondering what kind of world was outside our community that anyone would hurt the most beloved person any of us had ever known.

My daddy came with me, his arm around my shoulder, keeping me close as if he feared letting go. I had told him days earlier, told him what this loss had meant to me, told him how deeply I was hurting, because of how deeply I loved. And he had cried with me, held me and told me he understood, would do anything to make it hurt less, which of course, wouldn’t happen. I was grateful though, that Daddy and Ma were here for me in a way that so many parents chose not to be... Including the one t hat dropped to his knees before everybody, sobbing, screaming ‘why?’, his body weak as he leaned into his wife, his head in her chest, sobs shaking his body while she cradled him, whispering words to comfort him, while her own tears overtook her, mixing with his when she pressed her cheek against him, her arms all around him, holding him close, as they just sat there and cried for their child, my love, our loss.

"I never told him," He kept saying, over and over and over.

My daddy’s arms closed around me in a hug, and he gently wiped my own tears, which could never be as many as the man brought to tears on the floor, who just kept saying, "I wasn’t man enough to just tell him. I loved my son, and he never knew."

FIN