“Aaron.” I meet her eyes, and she presses lightly on the door. “Open up.” With a sigh of my own, I let her in—standing in front of the door as she sits on the bed.
“What do you want? I really can’t—”
“You should go see him.” My heart leaps into my throat. “His grave.”
“Are you kidding? I’m mourning an entire future I have already lived—as well as the love of my life. I can’t just walk up to his grave. I’d… I’d die.” I refuse to let the tears fall—refuse to cry in front of others anymore. I sob plenty on my own as it is.
“I think it will help. I think he would appreciate it.” I scoff—running a hand through my curls and giving her a glare.
“I don’t think he can appreciate it much when he’s dead.” Tina’s gentle green eyes sharpen into a glare to rival my own.
“I know you’re hurting. I wish I could take away all of this pain for you—as your mother I want to fix this so badly. But I can’t. So please—do not take your anger out on me when all I want to do is be here for my son.” My already-shattered heart splinters further. I drop to my knees in front of her—lay my head in her lap.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, Little Bird.” She pets my head.
“I—” hot tears escape me again as I cling to her ankle-length skirt. “I don’t know how to go. I don’t know how to see his tombstone. I’m… part of me is still holding onto hope that the two years I lived really are real.”
“That’s all the more reason to go. You’re torturing yourself here alone. Go today.” She sniffles in time with me, and I nod because she’s my mother and I can’t deny her. “He really, really loved you, Aaron.”
I’m sobbing again. Grasping her around the waist and burying my face intoher stomach.
“I know, Momma. And that makes it so much worse. It hurts so much more when I know he loved me—that he was coming down. I… I don’t know how to live with this pain. Without him.” She shushes me—cups my face and wipes my tears.
“You’ll learn. You’ll learn and Bear will be so proud of you as you do. He’d want you to heal—to move on.”
???
The graveyard is in Lancaster, which is depressing. I’m sure he’s miserable knowing he was buried here—in this shithole town he wanted to escape. But he didn’t have any family, and this is where mine is, so… it is what it is, I suppose. I get a bouquet of sunflowers and bring them with me. Sunflowers. Just like his sun smiles.
They laid him to rest in our family’s lot, and it doesn’t take me long to find the only new tombstone here. It’s a single angel—and written across the platform it sits upon is:
Benjamin Dickinson
July 24th, 2001
To
November 20th, 2022
a light to many, loved by all
Fuck. Here he is—it’s real. Benjamin is dead. He fell and I laid upon his dead body. I spent so long suspended in that freefall—so grateful to be able to see him—so certain I would jump again if given the choice. I was wrong. I would not. Not now—not when I know I’d be saved by his corpse. When I know I’d miss his funeral and be tortured by this false life we built in my imagination. I should have stayed on the bridge. I should have watched him fall and then jumped a little to the right.
I lay the sunflowers on the grass in front of his tombstone—their stems bound by the chain of his button necklace that was found amongst my things. I sit down to face him.
“Button—” I soundstupid—talking to myself. I was just lying in bed with him… “I’m sorry. I’m sorry this was the life you were dealt. What a shit fucking life. All the bad cards—only making it to twenty-one. I wish I had saved you. I wish I had admitted you when I had the chance. I… I failed you as a boyfriend—as your protector.” I wipe furiously at my eyes, look around to make sure I’m still alone.
The wind blows gently, and I can hear the birds chirping in the distance. It’s sunset.
“Anyway—” I continue. “I saw you at your twenty-second birthday. You had so much fun. We got a house together—built a home there. I saw you as my husband. You looked so beautiful walking down the aisle, giving yourself to me. We… We decided to have kids someday. To watch each other raise our children. You were so fucking happy.” He says nothing in return.
He can’t—not through the pounds of dirt and the rigor mortis. I wonder what they buried him in—what the casket looked like. Maybe it’s best I don’t know. That that image can’t haunt me.
“I just wanted you to know, Benjamin. That in the end, you would have been happy. If you hadn’t fallen, you would have healed and we would have grown old together.” I’m trying to talk through my tears as I stare at his name written in front of me—trying to breathe. “How unfortunate for us—this version that got ripped apart far too soon. I miss you so desperately, baby. I wish you’d come home. I wish I’d see you in front of me the way I saw you back then, when I was starving and exhausted. I… I won’t live with this pain forever. I can’t.”
My eyes are drawn up as a baby blue bird lands on the top of Benjamin’s tombstone. I choke on a laugh—wiping more of my tears away.
