Summary: Sterling is attending his wife's funeral with his friends, her friends, and his daughter. Nothing else. Just some sad fluff.
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His fingers curled into fists, his suit seeming more restrictive every minute, but nothing showed on his face.
His heart beat wildly, out of control, but nothing showed on his face.
He stared down at a coffin, at his wife, at the woman who he once and forever will hold dear.
A car crash.
A goddamned car crash took his wife from him.
Liliana Stallard; aged 43 but still looking 24, dead to "severe trauma to the frontal lobe".
He still couldn't wrap his head around it, and his face still showed no emotion.
The people around him, talking Liliana this and Liliana that, all of it just went through one ear and out the other. His fingers were basically crushing the stem of the white rose he held.
But a small tug on the jacket of his suit brought him out of his thoughts, and he looked down at his side to see his daughter.
"Dad..." she said in a small and quiet voice, staring up at him with her blue eyes- Liliana's blue eyes. "Dad, you're killing the flower."
Sterling blinked for a moment, and then looked over at the flower, and he let out a small, humorless chuckle. "I... am killing the flower, aren't I?"
He held the rose up for a moment, it's white petals catching the light of the sun- it was Liliana's favorite flower. Everything about it, she had liked. From the feel of the stem to the smell to even the taste of the nectar.
Then, he brought it down, away from the rays, and gently slid it in the cold, long-dead hands of his wife.
He didn't like it.
Even though his knuckles just barely brushed against her skin, he didn't like how cold it felt.
How lifeless it felt.
For a second, he thought of running away. He was too used to his wife's warm touch, to Liliana's warm touch, and he couldn't live without it.
In a mere moment, he had it all planned out. A perfect suicide, the perfect death. He'd make sure as much money as possible would be given to his daughter- his daughter.
What about his daughter?
If he died, she had nowhere to go. His little river Lily wouldn't be able to get her money anyways until after she turned 18, and he knew both his and Liliana's family were greedy little assholes.
He couldn't just leave her. But he wouldn't kill her, either. She had a life ahead of herself, a good reason to live, places to see, things to do...
He couldn't just do that, and he couldn't bear to not be able to see her.
He didn't want some adoptive father to walk her down the aisle, and he didn't want to be absent in her life.
"Alright, Lily, up we go." Sterling made up his mind, made his decision in a second.
He picked Lily up, held her close enough to her mother, and watched as she tenderly slid her own white rose in between Liliana's fingers.
Two flowers, Liliana's favorite flowers, now sat in her hands.
And Sterling stood like that, holding Lily close to his chest, for a good long while. His eyes stayed locked on his wife's dead ones, but for a second, he swore he could see something in there.
But then it was gone, and he turned away, taking a seat on a red velvet chair and settling Lily in his lap.
As he watched his little river Lily take out one of her small picture books and read, he decided that he would stay alive.
He would stay alive for a long, long while, so that he could see their Lily grow up, and grow old, and do the things they never did in Liliana's place.
The End.