“It’s our anniversary,” Angie murmured as her eyes fluttered open, fixing on the brick archway above her. Her voice echoed softly through the dim space. For a moment, reflex took over—she reached for her neck, grasping quickly, hoping this was only some wild dream.
But the world sharpened instead.
The smell of damp stone and dust.
The cold, unmoving air.
The gentle weight of a chain resting against her collarbone.
And on that chain—
“…the ring.”
She pressed the metal between her thumb and index finger, as if it were something she could still warm by holding.
Angie pushed herself upright and leaned back against the wall, taking in the St. Patrick Basilica catacombs. The place was still beautiful—quiet, reverent, heavy with endings. Every year, she returned to this exact spot. The place where she and Ben had met during a candlelight tour.
A strange place to fall in love.
Stranger still to return to after death.
This was where their love learned how to live.
Her ending happened elsewhere.
But beginnings imprint deeper.
That was why she came back here.
Angie died seven years ago—only three years after meeting Ben. And though death took her body, it didn’t erase the life they built together. They loved each other fiercely, absurdly, as if the universe had made a clerical error and let two halves of the same soul collide too soon.
They met right here, between two cardinals’ tombs, the moment Angie’s shoe betrayed her. The Velcro gave out, and she went flying—face-first—into Ben’s Old Navy blue-label sweater.
“Can you walk?” he asked, annoyed and startled.
“Apparently… no.” She lifted her ankle, showing him the dangling shoe. She tried a hop. “See? Tore up from the—well, not the floor up, but close enough.”
Ben smiled despite himself. His warm brown eyes met her storm-grey ones—and her eyes smiled back at him. Fully. Kindly. A softness he didn’t know eyes were capable of.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m being a dick.”
“Thank you for apologizing,” she replied. “Are you having a bad day?”
“Think I’ve had a few,” he laughed weakly.
“Do you want to talk about it? It’s okay if you don’t—we don’t even know each oth—”
“Would you like to know me?”
She paused. Then smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “Actually… do you want to get coffee?”
That coffee became the first of many.
Hands found each other.
Lives unfolded.
Angie and Ben were in love long before either of them admitted it. They made plans easily, carelessly, believing time would behave itself.
For a while, it did.
Plans for the wedding came together smoothly. The reception plans followed. The years they spent together blurred into a continuous warmth—bright, consuming, deeply ordinary in the way real love often is. They argued sometimes. Small fractures. But they never lost sight of one another. Every day still carried the same spark that had drawn them together in the catacombs.
People like to say the honeymoon phase fades. That it’s just a trick of novelty.
But not for them.
For Angie and Ben, love felt like a long, unbroken thought—something luminous, stretching forward without a visible end.
Ben planned the surprise carefully. Angie had always wanted the small patch of grass near the pier—the place where they’d shared their first kiss—for their wedding reception. It was an odd request. Nearly impossible.
Ben made it happen anyway.
He guided her there blindfolded, one hand wrapped securely around hers. When they reached the grass, music bloomed behind them—her friend’s band covering the song they loved most.
“Are you kidding me?” Angie laughed. “What—oh my god, what’s happening?”
Ben removed the blindfold.
“Remember when you said this place was impossible to get?” he asked, arms folding around her as he tried to stay calm.
Her body bounced with joy. Her eyes filled.
“We got it, babe.”
She screamed—pure, unfiltered happiness—and broke from his arms only to launch herself back into them, kissing him breathless.
“Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Anything we can’t,” he said softly, kissing her back, “we’ll figure out together.”
She swayed against him as the music carried on, humming the words under her breath.
“But I somehow
Slowly love you…”
“Angie?” Ben murmured.
Her steps faltered.
Her weight shifted—wrong, sudden, heavy. He adjusted instinctively, reaching for her face.
Time folded.
Her lips whispered, “a way.”
Her eyes rolled back.
Her head fell.
Ben’s knees hit the grass.
The music stopped.
People rushed forward.
Phones came out.
Angie’s nose began to bleed. Her breathing turned wet and uneven.
No one called 911.
They recorded Ben holding her as she died of an aneurysm in his arms.
“It was our wedding anniversary,” Ben said later, at the eulogy. “We were planning—”
He couldn’t finish. There was no ending to reach.
After the wake, he asked Moira—Angie’s closest friend—to stay behind. He handed her two rings, each threaded onto a chain.
“We never got married,” he said quietly. “All I want is to spend the rest of my life with the woman I love.”
Moira stared at him, grief and horror colliding.
“Oh my fucking god, Ben—are you okay?”
“I just watched the woman I love die in my arms,” he said, breaking. “The least I can do is marry her. Grieve her properly.”
Since Moira was ordained, she performed the ceremony.
She placed Angie’s hand into Ben’s.
Then Ben’s into Angie’s.
“Angie,” she said softly, “do you take this man—”
A pipe banged somewhere in the walls.
They froze.
“And you, Ben?”
“I do.”
Moira lifted the rings—to the sky, to the floor, to the center—and placed the chains around their necks.
“By the powers of earth, time, and all planes between,” she said, “I pronounce you husband and wife.”
The year that followed hollowed Ben out. He lost his job. Sold the apartment. Moved back into his old place. Smoked too much. Drank more. Wondered if it would’ve been easier to follow her instead of surviving her.
By the next anniversary, he wandered the pier drunk and alone, drawn back to the grass without knowing why.
As night fell, people came and went. Eventually, there was no one.
He cried.
He cried as the scent of her perfume slipped into the air. As he felt the gentle press of a hand against his face. He remembered the moment he swore he could feel her soul leave her body.
“A husk,” he muttered.
“Hey,” a voice whispered. “I’m not a husk.”
Ben opened his eyes.
Angie sat in front of him, wearing her pale dress. The ring rested at her throat. She looked whole. Alive.
Ben choked on his breath and scrambled backward in terror.
“How—how did—what are you—”
“It’s our anniversary,” she said gently.
“Our wedding anniversary,” she clarified. “You had Moira perform the ceremony. Remember?”
At first, she told him, waking in the catacombs had been terror. Screaming. Panic. The realization that she was gone. Dying hadn’t just been losing her life—it had been losing him too.
“I don’t know how this is happening,” she said, tears welling. “It’s like you made a wish. And I came back.”
Ben crawled toward her slowly.
“Can I… touch you?”
She guided his hand to her chest. He felt warmth. A heartbeat. The rise and fall of her breath. Her birthmark. The ring.
“Is this permanent?” he asked quietly. “Do we have time?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is now.”
They kissed—saying everything they couldn’t yet put into words. Longing. Ache. Trauma. Love.
That night, he took her home.
They spoke for hours. Held each other until sleep claimed them both.
At 7:05 a.m., Ben’s alarm went off.
Angie slept beside him.
He smiled. He couldn’t wait to show Moira the miracle.
When Moira arrived, he grabbed her arm.
“You’re taking the day off. You’re coming with me.”
She pulled back immediately.
“Ben—are you okay? Like… really okay?”
“Yes,” he said urgently. “Please. Just come with me. Coffee. I need to show you something.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Once I figure out you’re tore up from the floor up, we’re going to the cuckoo’s nest.”
“I think once you see what I see,” Ben said, “you’re gonna think we should go together.”
Moira followed him, uneasy, back toward his apartment—just a few blocks away—completely unaware of what waited a few floors up.