He just held me until I found my balance.
I saw the grave before I was ready. Maybe part of me knew I might never be ready.
Tarak was still grieving a fiancée when he buried her. The stone was beautiful, elaborate… beloved… but…someone has spray painted ‘WHORE’ in red across the back.
My knees weakened.
Dylan moved beside me, but he didn’t grab me this time. He let me decide whether to fall. His mouth thinned at the graffiti. “I’ll have it taken care of.”
I didn’t.
I walked to the edge of the grave and stood there, staring down at the woman who had made me and broken me and saved me and ruined me in ways I would probably spend the rest of my life untangling.
For a while, I couldn’t speak.
The wind moved over the hill, lifting my hair, slipping cold fingers beneath Dylan’s jacket around my shoulders.
I looked around for flowers, then remembered where we were.
The desert didn’t give softness easily.
But near the fence, stubborn little wildflowers grew in a pale clump, silvered by moonlight. I walked over and picked a few with shaking fingers. They were not beautiful in the way roses were beautiful. They were dry, delicate, fierce little things that had no business surviving where they did.
Perfect, then.
I carried them back and laid them at the base of her stone.
“This is fitting,” I whispered.
Dylan stepped back, giving me space.
I sank carefully to my knees.
The dirt was cold beneath me.
“Night,” I said to her. “That’s fitting too, isn’t it? Night is all you knew. All I knew.”
My voice cracked, but I kept going.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you. I thought I would. I thought if I ever came here, the words would already be waiting. But they’re not.”
The wind pushed tears down my cheeks before I could wipe them away.
“I’m angry at you,” I whispered. “I’m so angry I don’t know where to put it. I’m angry that you left me with questions. I’m angry that you made choices I’ll never understand. I’m angry that part of me still wants to crawl into your lap like a little girl and ask you to explain all of it in a way that doesn’t hurt.”
My hands curled in the dirt.
“And I love you. That’s the worst part. I love you even when I hate you. I miss someone I barely got to have. I grieve a version of you that might not have even existed.”
The town lights blurred.
“But you gave me life,” I said. “Whatever else happened, whatever you did, whatever was done to you… you gave me life.”
I bowed my head.
“And I’m going to make something of it.”
The words steadied me.
