Chapter 7 Vince
SEVEN
VINCE
Calling our destination a cemetery is pushing it. It’s not zoned for remains. It’s not listed on any maps. It’s probably—definitely—illegal, but that’s what makes it perfect. It’s private, it’s personal, and now it’s all mine.
"Why didn’t you tell us we came to the cabin to bury your aunt’s ashes?" Kat asks, her voice soft and careful.
I hold her hand as she steps over the uneven ground. The sun has already risen, but the trees cast heavy shadows over the forest floor.
“I didn’t want it to feel like a week-long wake,” I say, my fingers tightening around the small, wooden box clutched to my chest. “I wanted it to feel like a send-off. Like a goodbye party, not a funeral.”
Inheriting this land from my Aunt Mabel came with a list of responsibilities for maintaining the cabin and the few acres it sits on.
One of those responsibilities, as unusual as it may be, is becoming the sexton to my family's final resting place and burying my aunt’s ashes in the quiet corner of the woods where the trees grow thick, and the narrow dirt trail is lined with wildflowers.
Growing up, I never understood why this became a tradition.
I had always joked about how morbid it was to have an unsanctioned cemetery in our backyard, but now I understand why she left it to me.
This land is sacred. It's where my family's roots run deepest, where the earth holds our stories, and where I feel closest to the people who shaped me into the man I am today.
It’s quiet. Peaceful. The kind of place where secrets feel safe.
“I want to be mad at you, but this is exactly how she would have wanted it,” Ollie says, waking beside me. Solid. Like she knows I need her to be. “I can’t believe I could have missed this.”
I glance over at her, at the way her shoulder brushes mine with every step, grounding me in the moment. In life. In everything.
“You were never going to miss this,” I tell her, remembering how my heart ached in her kitchen the other day. She was heartbroken and hurting as I was waiting for my relationship with Kat to implode, as I prepared to drag Ollie out of her house, kicking and screaming.
I didn’t want to choose, and for the first time in my life, my partner didn’t make me. At a time when I was starting to think it was an impossibility, Kat chose both of us, and I’ve never felt more alive.
I squeeze Kat’s hand, and she looks up at me, her smile warm and understanding.
“Having both of you here means everything to me. So…thank you,” I say, my voice thickening.
The weight of the moment threatens to press down on me, but at the same time Kat kisses the back of my hand, Ollie bumps into my shoulder.
The two of them, the way they move together without thinking, like they’re two halves of the same whole, and I’m the lucky bastard who gets to stand in the middle.
The tightness in my chest grows as I see the simple stone markers come into view, moss creeping up their edges.
I set my bag down and kneel at the first pile of stone, running my hand over the rock firmly placed on top. Etched into its surface is the name, Helen. My grandmother.
I make my way down the line, touching the stone for my grandfather, Johnny, pausing for a moment before I take a deep breath and make my way to the third pile. Still holding my Aunt Mabel tight to my chest, I pick up the rock from the top of the pile and place it to my lips.
Valerie. My mother.
I close my eyes and choke down the sob that tries to claw its way out of my throat. She died two months before my thirteenth birthday, but my memories of her are strong.
I came out to her when I was twelve, though looking back, I’m sure she knew well before the realization ever hit me over the head. The way she held me, tears in her eyes, not from shame or anger, but because she knew how fucked up the world could be.
Even as the cancer stole her voice, her support for me was loud.
My mother was the first person to tell me that it was okay to be myself.
Ollie was the first person to ever show me how to be myself.
Ollie presses her shoulder against me as if she knew my thoughts shifted to her. “Tell us what to do."
Her simple offer cracks something open inside my chest. I am, at my core, a man built from strong women. The profound gratitude for their presence, for their unflinching willingness to shoulder this weight with me, floods every part of my soul.
My brilliant, shining girlfriend who sees the world in frames of light, and my fierce, enduring best friend who has always been my anchor.
I would be utterly lost without them.
###
It takes us about half an hour to dig a hole deep enough to bury my aunt’s ashes, and another two hours scouring the forest floor for enough rocks to make a mound we’re all proud of.
Something about seeing all four mounds together hits me harder than I expected.
No one would ever be able to completely fill the hole left by the absence of my mother, but if anyone has ever come close, it was my Aunt Mabel and my Ollie.
My breaths come sharp and uneven. The first tear hits the dirt only a second before a presence kneels down next to me. Ollie.
She doesn’t say anything. She just kneels beside me and pulls me into her. Suddenly, I’m thirteen again, hollowed out and furious, shoved into a new school two months after losing my mom.
That’s when I first saw her, drawing violently in a notebook, covered in safety pins and a scowl that dared anyone to come near her. She looked up, met my eyes, and didn’t look away with pity like everyone else. It felt like she saw my anger and matched it.
The next day, she threw a sketch of my dumb, grieving face onto my desk.
It was the first time I felt seen by anyone my age.
I had just lost the most important person in my life, and in barges his girl, this terrifying, scary, beautiful girl, who immediately started to fill the hole my mother left behind.
“She would have loved you,” I say, my voice rough. “My mom.”
A sob finally breaks loose from my chest, harsh and ugly. I’m crying for my aunt, for my mom, for all the years of holding in the one thing I’ve always known to be true.
Ollie’s arm goes around my shoulders, solid and real, and I turn into her, burying my face in her neck as I unload years of pent-up frustration and gratitude. I wrap my arms around her, holding her so tight it probably hurts, but she doesn’t say anything.
I can feel Kat hovering, giving us this moment as I cling to Ollie, the canvas of her jacket soft against my cheek.
“I’ve got you,” she murmurs into my hair, cradling the back of my head. “You’re not alone. Never alone, remember?”
I lift my head. Her eyes are glistening too, her stubborn jaw tight. All the words Kat said last night, all the feelings I’ve boxed up for over a decade, surge forward.
It’s a thought that lingers too long, like a song stuck on repeat in my head. I’ve spent years carefully constructing walls around that particular truth, brick by brick, because the alternative always felt too messy. Too complicated. Too risky.
I am in love with my best friend, and my girlfriend knew it the whole time.
No longer a thought, but a fact, as solid as the ground beneath us.
I’m in love with Ollie.
My thoughts are racing, but my movements are quicker. My lips slide along her cheek and rest against hers. It’s not gentle or questioning; it’s a confession. Her mouth is soft and yielding, and the world makes perfect sense.
She goes rigid in my arms. Her hands push against my chest, just enough to break the contact. “Stop,” she breathes, the word pained.
She doesn’t pull away fully, though. Instead, she leans her forehead against mine, her breath shaky, and the intimacy of that small gesture is almost worse.
“Vince,” she breathes, shaking her head.
The way she says my name is like a bucket of ice water. Sobering me instantly. She pulls back further, but then just as the panic starts to build in my chest, Ollie brushes my hair out of my face and softly presses her lips to my forehead, and it fractures me.
“Please,” she begs. “You’re grieving. I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.
” Ollie’s voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts through the silence like a blade.
Her fingers linger on my cheek for a moment before she pulls away completely and stands up, putting space between us that feels like miles.
“Let's get you home,” she says, her voice gentle but firm as she reaches down to help me up from the ground.
The weight of her hand in mine still feels like an anchor, grounding me in the moment.
I let her pull me to my feet, my body moving on autopilot as we make our way back down the trail toward the cabin.
The forest around us is alive. It’s peaceful, but my mind is anything but.
I can still taste her on my lips—salt and warmth and something uniquely Ollie. My hands clench into fists at my sides, my knuckles white. I want to reach for her again, to pull her back into me, but I don’t. Because she’s right. This isn’t how I wanted this to happen.
I wanted to tell her when I could show her that this isn’t just grief talking. When I could make her understand that I’ve been in love with her for years. But now, as we walk back to the cabin, the forest closing in around us, I can’t shake the feeling that everything is already changing.