Big City Hero UNOFFICIAL BOOK TWO

Chapter Thirty-Six: I'll Always Be Here For You.

Molly's POV an hour later:

It has been two whole months since I last heard his voice, seen his smile, heard him laugh, touched his face, held his hand.

Two months.

Who would have known that my world would have changed in this small amount of time?

Every piece of me ached, my heart, my brain, my body, it all felt like it was shutting down, as if the plug was pulled and the desire to live, to breathe was draining out of me.

My Coal, the man I hoped to marry and have a family with, the guy I wanted to wake up to every morning for the rest of my life, was gone. He wasn't coming to melt away my ice walls anymore. He wasn't going to hold me tight in his arms. He was just gone.

Now there are three tombstones I walk past every day. I know it doesn't mean anything, they're dead, they don't know I'm stopping in front of them, rereading what's written on the stone even when I know it by heart.

'Laurie Braeson. Everything a mother and wife was supposed to be.'

'Thomas Braeson. Caring husband and father.'

'Coal Evan Samuel Maximus Black. You were strong for all of us, and you will never be forgotten.'

I was all alone in this world, no one left. Benjamin had his mother, father and Betty, Charlie had his mother and now Marie. But I have no one. I mean, I have Coal's cat Kevin, so I'm not entirely left alone, but still.

Now all I want to do is just stay home and stare at senseless animated movies or look at pictures of Coal and I till it hurts to see them. Unfortunately, I was far from home right now.

I was in Denny's sitting in a booth seat waiting for someone to show up, they supposedly needed to talk to me about something, but they wouldn't say who or what it was. Curiosity forced me here, but I'm a superhero, I can take care of myself if this was a trick.

But this was still a bad idea; I should have just stayed home. I was about to get up when suddenly Charlie slipped into the seat across from me, breathing hard and looking like he ran all the way from HQ to meet here. "Sorry, I'm late! I got held up. There was a weird glitch with the security system at Headquarters that I had to fix."

"Charlie?" I asked, scrunching up my nose and frowning. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

"Umm..." Charlie's gaze slipped from mine. "Um... Well..."

"Well, what? I was in the middle of going through my dad's things, and burning his diabolical plans."

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, an action that was a habit of Coal's. "Molly, I found something when I was trying to go through Coal's files at work." He pulled something out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me. "I think he wanted you to have this."

It was a slightly dusty little black box, and when I opened it I lost my breath in a rush. It was the matching wedding band to my engagement ring. It was the wedding band Coal was supposed to put on my finger when we said 'I do.'

"Molly... The gang was going to get together later, Ben, Beats, Marie and myself, we were going to play card games, affectionately make fun of Ben's music and eat pizza, why don't you join us? I know it's hard, but we all have a piece of him and being with everyone... It's almost like he never died like his legacy still lives on," Charlie said, reaching across and putting his hand on mine. "We'll all be at Ben's place around six tonight."