Two Graves #3
“What do you think he took?” Zane’s voice was careful, but not the careful of someone afraid of the answer. The careful of someone making sure he heard the real one.
“Years,” I said. “Not just the bad years. The ones after, too. I think if he hadn’t hurt me, I would have just gotten to be sad about my dad.
Just sad. I wouldn’t have had to go looking for an old pain to blame for making the new one so complicated.
I think about everyone else who’s lost a parent and I bet most of them don’t have to do this.
Don’t have to drag the person who hurt them into the grief like he’s part of it, like he’s still entitled to my pain. ”
“He’s not entitled to anything,” Zane said.
“I know that. Knowing it doesn’t make it leave.”
“No,” he agreed. “It doesn’t. I wish it did. I used to think it would, somewhere around year two, that there would be a day the math would just stop running. It didn’t. It still doesn’t, not even for me, and I wasn’t the one it happened to.”
That caught me off guard, the admission, and I sat up a little straighter against the stone. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I still do it too,” he said. “Not the same way you do. But I see him sometimes, in things that have nothing to do with him. A guy’s voice in a crowd.
When I see a man staring at you. I think it just means I was there.
I watched what he did, and some part of my brain decided that meant I had to do the math too, just in case.
Just in case I needed to recognize him again before he could get close to you. ”
I closed my eyes, the angel’s stone cool against the back of my skull. “You never talk about that.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t want you carrying my version on top of your own,” he said.
“But you talked about what he took, and he took something from me, too. He took a version of loving you that could have just been simple. I don’t get to be a normal boyfriend who’s never had to see you in so much pain.
I had to learn that early, and so did you, and neither one of us asked for it. ”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the old reflex, apologizing for the weight of myself.
“Don’t,” he said, no hesitation at all. “I’m not telling you so that you’ll apologize. I’m telling you so you’ll know that you’re not alone. You’re not alone, and you’re not wrong for feeling this way. I do the math, too.”
I let his words fold into the silence, letting what he said become a part of the night. The wind rustled through the trees, my breath matching the rhythm of it.
“Do you love me?” I asked him, which is not something I would normally ask, but I felt the need for reassurance right now.
“Yes,” Zane answered so quickly, I barely finished my question. “I love you, Seren. I love you with everything inside me.”
“Promise?” I asked, and my voice went a little bit smaller.
“I promise.”
The quiet came back as we both took our time to breathe.
I wanted to hush the anxious flood that was rising inside me.
The one telling me that eventually, Zane’s patience with me would end.
Eventually, Zane would grow tired of the way life keeps hurting me.
Eventually, Zane would not find the broken glass pieces of me worth gluing back together.
“Seren,” Zane said my name, snapping me from the loops trying to tighten inside me. “It’s late. Can I please come get you? I just want to drive you home. I want to make sure you get home safely.”
I sighed. I was starting to hate the way my mind resisted Zane when all my body wanted to do was be held by him. “No, I’m okay.”
“How about Austin? Can he come?” Zane asked me, using Austin the way he usually did, as a tool that might mend me when his glue wasn’t working.
“I’m okay, Zane. I can walk home. I have done it a million times before. I’m not that drunk. I know the way. I’m okay.” Though I knew my words wouldn’t soothe him, I wanted to try anyway.
Zane let out a breath, heavy with the weight of the person he loves refusing his protection. “Will you go home now? Start the walk?”
“Yes,” I answered him. “I’ll leave soon.”
“Okay,” Zane agreed, but even over the phone I could see the look of worry that definitely was shadowing his face.
“I love you,” I told him, again. “Thank you for everything you do for me. I see all of it.”
“And I see all of you,” Zane told me. And the weight behind the six words was enough to almost make me change my mind and let his eyes land on me. “Be safe. I will call you tomorrow morning. I love you, Seren.”
Then the phone went dark. And the quiet came back.
And then the understanding followed. My understanding that I was drunk in a graveyard, my parents were in the ground, and time would never let me turn back.
This is what stays. Life is not the permanence; death is the only one who wins against time.
I know I told Zane I would go home. But I did not want to.
I wanted to be a little girl again, sleeping in a bed between my parents.
I was not sure if that was something I had ever done.
If it was, it was not something that lived forever in my mind as a memory.
If I had, it was lost to time just like everything else.
So, I lay down between the two graves. The ground was so damp that I felt cold-blooded, as though I could only warm again by force.
It was hard and uncomfortable in all the ways that usually prevented sleep. But I closed my eyes anyway.
And I slept in the dirt bed with my mom and dad.