Cheap Shots

00:EP

UNEDITED

Epilogue

Orion Smith.

She thought the name looked a little bland on the gravely headstone, save for the lone, withered rose which had a small paper note attached to it.

It didn't feel like Bo's place to read the note, after all, it was for whoever was lying underneath the neatly trimmed headstone, but her curiosity got the best of her and she bent down to retrieve the small square of white.

"Missing you most on your anniversary." Bo read aloud, the small, clipped print's words rolling off of her tongue naturally. She bit her lip, immediately folding up the note, as gently as she could, and returning it to its spot on the stone, hoping whoever put it there wouldn't realize it had been disturbed.

Bo bent down slowly, her covered knees hitting the damp grass with a small thud, the water immediately soaking through her opaque black tights.

She took a deep breath, looking up at the block letters commemorating Orion Smith. Daughter. Sister. Friend.

Dead, Bo thought morbidly, picking nervously at the hem of her light floral dress.

"I- uh, know this is unconventional," Bo spoke loudly, her voice cutting through the silence. She let out a disbelieving noise at her introduction. "I'm talking to a grave," she mumbled, shaking her head in disbelief.

She almost considered getting up and leaving, thinking that maybe writing a letter and placing it on the grave would be better than talking to it.

No, you have to do this, she told herself.

Bo cleared her throat. "You don't know who I am," she said, "But, I just wanted to thank you, formally, for, uh-" her words were becoming slightly choked as she stared at the grave. "For letting me live." This time, her voice cracked, and she sucked in her top lip to try and control her watery eyes. "I needed a heart, and really badly. I probably only had a few days left to live, before you woke up. But then I heard you fell back into the coma, but your heart stopped. In your report it said that your injuries were too grave for your body to heal. They couldn't bring you back. And somehow, I ended up- I ended up with your heart." She wasn't ashamed as the small tears fell onto her cheeks, rolling off onto the stone. Bo didn't have any reason to be.

"Thank you," she whispered, with as much gratitude as she could possibly muster, knowing she wouldn't feel nearly as satisfied if she didn't try and show the extent of her gratefulness.

"I wonder what you were like," Bo muttered underneath her breath. Certainly not someone who deserved to die, she reasoned, feeling guilty although it wasn't her fault.

"What she was like?" An unfamiliar voice commented as a man dressed in dark colors walked towards her with a rose in his hand.

Bo quickly got to her feet, adjusting her dress so it wasn't pulled so far down, and she nodded quietly, tucking a stray lock of her auburn hair behind her ear and attempting to wipe her cheeks. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone else was here."

He smiled sadly. "I always come back here on her birthday."

Birthday. The word echoed sadly in Bo's ears.

"She wasn't what everyone thought." He said, twirling the rose in his fingertips.

Bo watched as he pricked his finger on the thorn, and winced, shaking it slightly to rid it of the pain.

She didn't say anything.

"She liked field hockey, thought it was better than ice hockey, really adamant about it, too. And she was always smirking, always had something up her sleeve. Really witty. We never got along, Orion and I," he smiled sadly, his blue eyes crinkling as he stared at her grave. "We never got along."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Bo told him honestly, finally taking notice of the white square of paper dangling from his fingertips, which looked oddly similar to the one already on her grave.

"We were always teasing each other about which sport was better," he reminisced.

Bo finally took notice of the man's appearance, withered much like the rose. He looked in his late thirties; his hair specifically styled to the side and his eyes a dull blue. There was a hint of hair on his jawline, but if anything it made the man look more put together. Bo thought he looked very familiar, yet she couldn't seem to place from where she knew him.

"Did you go to school together?" Bo finally asked, feeling more comfortable around the stranger.

He nodded. "Yes."

"Can you maybe tell me more about her? If it's not too hard- I just, well I just wanted to know more about her. I have her heart," Bo spoke softly, and when he didn't reply, she didn't think he heard her.

"You have her heart?" He finally asked, his eyes glistening slightly in the morning light.

Bo sniffed, nodding her head twice. "Yeah."

"I- I didn't know it went to anyone."

"I was only six, I don't remember much of it, just my mother signing a few things, and an older lady with brown hair, really." Bo nervously glanced at the man.

His lips curved gently upwards in a pained smile. She wasn't totally gone, he thought, and somehow it gave him hope.

"Thank you," Bo said to the man. He didn't look as if he wanted company any longer, and she knew he would want time alone with the grave.

"Of course."

Bo slowly retreated, mumbling a small goodbye to Orion's grave before turning fully and walking back in the direction of her car. She took refuge behind a large gravestone, making sure she wasn't in the man's sight. She couldn't help but feel curious about what the man had written on the paper.

The man placed the small square on her grave, picking up the old one and stuffing it into his coat pocket, laying the rose down above the birthday message carefully. "My daughter asked why she was named after a constellation today," he said to the grave, his face ashen as he blankly gazed upon her engraved name. "But she's too young to know."

He sighed. "You affected us all more than you could have ever imagined." The man looked up towards the graying sky. "But I have to let you go. It's been so long. You found peace, and now it's my turn to make peace with this."

A frown was etched upon his face as he folded his lips into his mouth. "Happy birthday, Smith," he said sincerely.

He glanced one last time at the square of paper he had left, the scripted, final words, bringing a sad ache, before sighing heavily and walking away, his hands in his pockets and a trudge in his step as he ended his brief talking.

Bo was disappointed in herself as she crept slowly up to where he had just been, gingerly retrieving the note, but she had always been curious.

Written in the stars, is your name, spelled out by the constellation of the lights above. Happy birthday to the one they burn bright in memory of. -Beckett, Halle, and our daughter, Orion