Loving Raven

14. Paying Respects

My only company was the cars zipping their way through the streets, occasionally a taxi-cab would pull off to the side offering for me a ride. As convenient as it would've been to just climb my way into the back of the cab, I declined their offers wanting the extra walking time to clear the thoughts rumbling through my head. i was headed to a place I had seen as forbidden territory since Raven had died, a place I had visited often in the weeks leading up to her death. The place where mine and Raven's relationship formally began, her home. 

A small memorial was laid out in Raven's honor in the yard; an angelic statue planted in the center, on both sides were small bushes of roses, a couple teddy bears laid around it as well. The yard, which had once been well kept, was now grown up to an abnormally tall length. Raven's mother's flower gardens were now untamed, weeds sticking out in random places. The bird bath that was always flourished with fresh water was now bone dry, and the bird feeders hanging around now hung there seedless. All in all, it was a shadow of the home it once was.

I stood in front of the memorial with my hands folded in front of me, and I just stood there. I stood there looking into the eyes of the statue, all the while still wishing this was a horrible nightmare. I wanted to scream at the top of lungs, scream and curse out into the heavens if it meant she would come back.

"I find myself talking to inanimate things these days," I spoke to the statue as if it was my best friend, "I know, that sounds pretty weird. It's true though, I find myself speaking to everything that makes me think of you. Any little thing where I feel your presence, I'm talking to it because I know you're there. I dream about you sometimes, too, that's crazy. It's like you're really there though, like you're really trying to tell me something but I just don't listen. I don't listen because if I do listen, then you'll go away. You'll leave and I won't ever see you again, and in my dreams is the only place I can really see you now. I don't want to visit a headstone, casket in the ground, or be standing in your yard secretly talking to a statue. I want to sleep, and never wake up if it meant you'd be in my dreams forever."

A familiar voice from behind me caused for me to jump as they chimed in, "She can hear you, you know?" Raven's mother walked off from the porch, her nightgown flowing in the brisk wind, "I find myself coming out here sometimes too, just to talk to her. She listens. It may not seem like it but she shows me sometimes that she's still around watching over me. She's in the wind, in the leaves falling down from the trees, in the thunder as it roars and awakens the sky, and in the stars as they twinkle with light."

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Biles. I shouldn't be here in your yard," I turned to walk away, "I'll see myself out of here. This won't ever happen again."

She held up her hand in refusal and stopping me within my tracks, "She loved you, Cullen. Moving here wasn't what we wanted to do, it wasn't what she wanted. Who wants to change schools in the middle of the year, your Senior year at that. It was something she dreaded and argued about for weeks, for a moment we almost considered letting her stay with my sister and finishing out the year at her old school. If we had done that, however, she wouldn't have met you. You made her so unbelievably happy, Cullen."

I raked my foot against the ground, a small smile sweeping across my face. "I blame myself all the time for what happened, Mrs. Biles. It was I driving the car that night, I should've been paying more attention," the guilt began to wash over me and took over once more, "It should've been me that died that night, she had so much to live for."

Mrs. Biles snarled, "Nonsense! You have so much to live for too, Cullen. That was my daughter in that car, she may have died and you lived but that's fate. Everyone has a time, it was her time. I hate that it had to be her time, but you're still here and living. Don't do so in Raven's shadow, she wouldn't have wanted that for you! She would've have wanted you to move forward with your life, achieve everything you sought out to do before she came along. That's what's going to make her proud in the end when she's watching down on you, not watching you sulk and become a shadow of whom you once were."

I looked up at her to notice she was now, too, beginning to have tears welling into the ducts of her eyes. I brought her towards me and wrapped her in a warm embrace for comfort, the trembling of her body escaping from the tears that were now flooding from her eyes soaking the shoulder of my shirt. Despite how uncomfortable it was making me, I didn't want to disturb the much needed moment between Raven's mother and I.

She released herself from my arms, wiping her eyes embarrassingly. "I'm so sorry," she wiped my shoulder as if believing her swipes were going to dry off the wetness that was now covering the shoulder part of my shirt, "I feel so embarrassed, I shouldn't be crying like this. What brings you here tonight Cullen?" 

I shrugged my shoulders, "I've been going to therapy lately, it's been helping a lot as far as coming to terms with how I'm feeling. I took some advice and decided to start hanging out with some of my old friends again, but doing that made me realize that I'm not as healed as I thought I was. I'm seeing things and hearing things that aren't there, and it's almost driving me crazy." 

"What do you mean seeing and hearing things?" a look of confusion washing over her face.

"Raven," I began cautiously, "Sounds crazy enough, right? I'm hearing her and seeing her, but not while I'm awake. She visits me in my dreams sometimes, talks about this wonderful place beyond the place she's in. She can't go to this place because she's in the place where she's at because of me, because I won't let her go. Does this make any sense to you?"

Mrs. Biles shook her head, "It doesn't, maybe you should see your therapist again. Talk to them about what you're seeing and the things you're hearing. Sometimes our dreams aren't just things we make up in our sleep, or things we're thinking about just before we go to bed and close our eyes for the night. Sometimes our dreams are signs. Maybe it's a sign that you're not fully and completely over Raven, which is true when you're sitting there putting the blame on yourself despite others around you assuring you there's no way you could've prevented what happened. Death is inevitable and we escape it everyday in so many ways, but when it's your time there's no escaping it. Raven was my daughter, I should be more hurt than anyone. She came from me, and I knew her longest. I'm hurt and saddened that my one and only baby girl won't grow old, I won't get to experience all of the little things. Her going off to college, getting married, blessing me with grandchildren. I'm angry about that, so angry, but I can't control fate or the inevitable. If it was her time, I have to accept that. I'll see her again one day, death is but only temporary just as life is only but temporary."

I nodded my head, "I think you're right. I know I'm not over Raven, and I won't ever be over her. My mother left at a young age, this is a story I told Raven before we had gotten together. She suffered a great deal, suffered horribly with post partum depression. Nothing really helped, and the more people pushed me towards her the more she found herself pulling away. She loved being a mother but not enough to be a mother, she loved my father but deep down she envied me. Eventually she left, and I never got over that. I distasted women for so long because of that, because I didn't have the nurturing and loving mother I should've had. My father was a terrific parent, put my feelings above his own and worked all the time. In doing so, he never found partnership in anyone, never had the time to. Now he has more time with me out of High School but he still won't, no interest. I think he adapted the same distaste as I had, because the woman he loved and grew with just walked away." Mrs. Biles nodded her head, allowing for me to continue on with the story, "Raven was the first person I had met that made that distaste go away, I loved her. I loved her more than myself, I'll never get over that." 

She rested her had on my shoulder stroking it softly, "Thank you for sharing that with me, Cullen. You were an amazing friend to our Raven, and made moving here for her so much easier. I'll always thank you for that. Please feel welcome here at any time, we'd love to have your company around these ways. Don't think for a second that since she's gone you're not welcome here, that's not true. Our doors are always open."

I watched as she turned to walk back into the house, looking over her shoulder and flashing me a farewell smile as she did so. Warmth and comfort washed over as I exited the fence that enclosed Raven's yard. The brisk wind gave a sudden gust, causing me to jump as leaves from the trees overhead began to fall around me. The energy that filled me let me know that the gust was caused from the presence of Raven...