Page 53 of From the Ashes

Sweetness

That’s okay. Thank you for helping me.

We wanted you to stay.

We?

Me

Really ?

Sweetness

Yes.

I suck in air, my lungs burning like I’ve been drowning for days.

Me

I have to fix something. I won’t be around for a few days.

Do you still want to yell at the top of the mountain ?

Sweetness

THE yelling date ? Yes.

Me

Saturday evening, next week ?

Sweetness

Pick me up at seven.

I stare at the floor for five minutes before admitting how I felt for the last three days.

Me

I miss you sweetness, more than you can imagine.

Sweetness

I miss you too.

My heart skips a beat.

She misses me. It’s not over.

I just need to do one more thing and I’ll be ready.

It’s six a.m. I’m an early riser, not that it matters since I haven’t really slept in the last few days, ‘cause I wasn’t sure if I would ever get the chance to hold my girl again after I left like a coward. Or, correction, after beingtriggered. Dr. Parks’ words, not mine. Anyway, I drove out here. Knoxville cemetery. Back to them. My mom. My sisters. The ones I failed to protect. I park the bike at the gates and walk the rest of the way. My boots hit the muddy ground. Some stones are broken, others are brand new and shiny with fresh flowers. Either way, they’re all buried down there. Death doesn’t make a distinction when you go under. Just like we all bleed the same color when we get a cut. At our core, I guess we’re not all that different. The air is cold, damp. The only sound around is the crunch of gravel. Not to say that I like it, but silence has always been fine with me. And then I find them. Names carved into stone, but it’s not enough. No stone could ever hold the weight of what they were. Of what they meant to me.Elisabeth, Emma, and Madeline Cavanaugh.I stand there for a long time, hands shoved deep into my pockets, staring at the marble.

And then I start to talk.

“Hi,” I try, as if they were here, sitting on the grave, listening to me. “I…I think about you every day. Of your voices, your smiles, your laughter,” I confess in the silence of the early hour, the sun barely out to illuminate their stone, “I’m sorry.” I’m stretched too thin, showing myself raw to the people I failed. “For not protecting you. For being a Goddamn kid who didn’t know what to do. I’ve carried it all this time like it could somehow change anything. But it doesn’t, does it?” I rub mychin, shaking my head, ‘cause why on earth would I ask a question I know I won’t get answers for.

The wind blows on my face.