Hold On to Me

Layla – Present

If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that there’s no kind of love that doesn’t end with a broken heart.

The sun shines down on the cemetery. There’s barely a breeze, and the flowers planted neatly between each grave are in full bloom, bright and full of life.

I want to rip every single one of them up.

An older man kneels next to a grave across from me, a bouquet of peonies in his wrinkled hands, while a groundskeeper waters the flowers I want to destroy.

Life is everywhere, but it’s tainted by the invisible string of death that tethers us all to this exact moment. I press my palm to my chest and take a deep breath.

The funeral director dips his head as he watches the coffin lower into the ground.

Ben’s coffin.

I look away, choosing instead to focus on his headstone, not yet etched with his name, his birthday, or the day he stopped breathing. I wipe the tears staining my cheeks and feel a hand on my shoulder. I fight the urge to shrug it off, but I know Clark only means well.

Four days.

That’s how long it’s been.

I’ve barely had time to understand it, and yet here I am next to his grave.

When I first contacted the funeral director, he asked me what Ben’s wishes were, if he wanted to be buried or cremated. He talked me through both options as if the conversation were normal.

But I didn’t have the answers to any of it.

I don’t know what Ben’s wishes would have been. We never talked about dying. We never had those conversations. It didn’t seem important; we had time.

We had so much time.

I don’t know if he would have wanted a grave, or for his ashes to be spread somewhere else, somewhere important.

We should have talked about it.

I keep my eyes on his headstone, imagining the words that will soon be engraved there, the words I chose.

Benjamin “Ben” Matthews, beloved husband, son, and grandson.

November seventh is his birthday. He was two months away from turning twenty-three. I had it all planned out, his present hidden in the back of our closet, the restaurant where his friends would have met us already reserved.

I glance at the others gathered by his grave.

Clark’s hand rests between my shoulder blades, and I don’t have it in me to tell him to leave me alone. I know he’s hurting too.

I just can’t help him.

Not now.

I notice a few of Ben’s teammates standing near the back, his coaches, some college friends, and then there’s his mom. She was crying so loudly during the service I wanted to cover my ears. Ben wouldn’t have wanted her here. That much I know.

Yet she’s the one person who doesn’t give a damn about what Ben would have wanted.

Instead of offering me help, she sent me a list of relatives I’ve never met. I’ve only had the misfortune of seeing her twice since Ben and I started dating, and I’m almost certain that’s the same number of times Ben saw her too. I have to hand it to her, she’s putting on one hell of a performance.

At least his dad isn’t a hypocrite. He sent a sympathy card. No explanation for why he couldn’t make his only son’s funeral, just a card with his name scribbled inside. I tore it up and threw it in the trash. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good.

The funeral director passes me a bunch of flowers I’m supposed to throw on top of Ben’s coffin.

I pinch a stem between my finger and thumb.

Daisies.

They used to be my favorite, but today I hate them too.

Ben didn’t care about flowers. He didn’t care for all this fanfare either. He would have hated this entire day.

The funeral director looks at me with pity filled eyes, then dips his chin, giving me my signal.

I don’t want to let the flowers go. When I do, they’ll shovel the dirt over him, and Ben will be gone.

I won’t be able to lie next to him, or kiss him, or talk to him, or laugh with him, or cry with him. It will all be gone.

Ben will be gone.

And then he’ll be only a memory, a memory that fades and changes over time, because I won’t remember it right.

I don’t want that to happen. I want to remember everything exactly as it was. I want all the imperfections. I want my life with him.

He clears his throat to hurry me. My hands shake. I blink, and the tears start to fall.

I don’t like this. I’m not the strong one. I can’t even throw a stupid bunch of daisies onto his grave without some sort of internal protest.

The man takes a few steps until he’s standing beside me. I wish I could remember his name. He’s told me twice already, but I can’t recall what he said. Maybe Martin? Trevor?

“It’s time, Mrs. Matthews.”

He says the words with so much sympathy that I step forward. I touch the delicate petals of the daisies before letting them go.

I don’t tell him that I want to throw myself in there too. That I have no idea how I’m going to live without him. That The fact that he won’t walk through the front door with a bouquet of daisies for me ever again makes me want to die too.

None of it is fair.

I’ve decided I hate everything today. I hate the sun for shining, I hate the flowers for being so bright and beautiful, I hate the air because it’s entering my lungs and not his.

I hate the guests who have come to mourn because they get to go home to their wives and husbands and families and live their lives.

I hate it all.

I step back and stare blankly at a woman who catches my eye. I could count on one hand how many people here today would actually want to know what’s going on inside my head.

The rest don’t want the truth. They want me to smile sadly at them before they go home to their normal lives, lives completely unchanged by the worst moment in mine.

They want to know I’m sad, because I should be sad, but they don’t want to know the depths of it. How it’s torn apart my flesh and carved down to my bones.

They only want the pretty side of my grief. The surface level, not the storm beneath it.

The truth would be far too ugly for them.

They start to throw the dirt over the coffin, and those gathered begin to walk toward the parking lot. I wait a little longer before falling into step beside Clark and his girlfriend, Georgia. Georgia holds onto his arm as Clark talks.

He’s doing that thing people do at funerals, remembering the best moments at the worst time, finding some sort of comfort in the memories.

The fading memories.

“Do you want a ride to the hotel?”

His voice brings an abrupt halt to my thoughts. He looks between me and his car.

“No.”

He nods, and for a moment, he looks like he’s about to hug me. But when I cross my arms over my body, he drops his by his side.

I don’t want to be hugged or touched by anyone today.

I get into Ben’s car and close the door. He doesn’t try to open it or speak to me again. I’m glad.

I catch sight of Ben’s mom resting her head against his uncle’s chest, a crumbled tissue pressed to her nose as tears flow down her cheeks, black mascara staining the streaks.

When I called her three days ago to tell her what happened, she didn’t even sound upset. I’ve heard people react to pets dying with more emotion. Maybe it hadn’t hit her yet. Maybe it was the delayed grief people talk about.

If I didn’t know how she treated Ben, I might consider those plausible options. But unfortunately, I know all too well what type of woman she is, and more importantly, I know what type of mother she was.

He deserved so much more than her. He deserved so much more than all of this.

I pull into the hotel, turn off the engine, and stare at the venue. It’s not in the nicest part of town, but it’s all I could afford on my own.

Ben’s life insurance and his employer paid out a large sum into our joint account. I don’t want to touch that money. I hate that it even exists. It shouldn’t exist.

I stare at the sign stuck in the center of the building.

It’s missing a few letters, the H in “hotel” is gone completely, and the E is flashing on and off. The building itself is painted such an awful bright yellow that every time we drove past, I’d comment on how bad it looked.

Ben would joke that he liked it, that we should paint our apartment that exact shade.

Looking at the yellow now, I think it might be the only stupid thing about this day I like.

The other guests enter through the reception doors. One by one, I watch them disappear.

I wish I could close my eyes and hear his voice one last time. I’ve thought about that a lot these last three days. If I could only hear his laugh. See his smile. Kiss him.

Everything is tied to one last time.

I keep thinking, if only I’d known that morning we had together would be our last, I would have savored it. I would have bound it to my soul so that I’d never forget what it was like to be loved by him.

But I didn’t know.

Instead, I was busy rushing around, getting ready for a shift in the bakery, giving him a quick kiss before he rushed out the door to training.

I lean my head back, the headrest too high for me, and twirl his empty bottle of Mountain Dew in the cup holder.

Everything around me feels sentimental. His hoodie sprawled across the backseat, my hair ties wrapped around the gear stick.

A photo of us dangling from the rear-view mirror, all exactly as he left it that morning.

I reach into the backseat and grab his pale gray hoodie. I hold it in my hands and cry into the fabric.

It still smells like him.

I put it on. It doesn’t go with the black dress I’m wearing, but I don’t care.

I feel like his arms are around me, and if he can hold me through the next few hours, I’ll take it.

I pull the zipper up, breathe in the familiar scent, and brace myself for what comes next.

***

The moment I open the door to the reception area, I notice how cold it feels. The air conditioning must be turned up as high as it can go. I’ve never actually been inside this hotel. I phoned them only to check prices, and when theirs was by far the cheapest, I booked it.