"What the fuck are... you doing here?" Aubrey says, her voice grief filled and violent. Right away, I feel sick, disgusting, gross. I interrupted something I shouldn't have. I'm the bad guy here.
"I come out here a lot. Never really at night though." I say softly, and against my better judgement, I sit down beside her, just far away enough to not appear threatening or intruding.
"I come out here a lot too. Always at night. I hate when other people are around. My mourning is my own." She says, dulling back her aggression, just a little bit. Just barely noticeable.
I notice though. In this dark grave yard, at night, with tear streaks on both of our faces, wind whistling through the falling off and dying leaves, I notice. I pay attention to the details, I've learned how to do that, from staying quiet and hiding in the back of classrooms and behind doors. I've learned to notice when someone's emotion changes. When they become safer to be around. So yeah. Of course I noticed.
"Do you want me to leave?" I ask, undecided on if I want her to say yes or no. Either way I'll be dissapointed.
It'd be nice to become friends again, and it'd be nice to get her to talk to Sunny, and if she and Sunny talk, I want to be friends with her before they talk. Because the worst thing would be for her and Sunny to talk, and then she says something absolutely terrible and brain breaking and heart shattering, and then he leaves me all alone again, because he'll have gone back to his room, and maybe for good. I can take a lot, I have taken a lot, but I think if he were to leave me again, if he were to leave me forever, I would just fall over dead from sadness, abandonment, and heart break.
Maybe she reads my mind, maybe she wants to do something nice for once, or maybe she's just indecisive and sad, but she doesn't say yes or no. She just shrugs. So I don't get up, I don't say anything, I just sit there, hands in the damp grass, fingers digging into the dirt. The air is cold and so am I. Crickets chirp in the background and a warm breeze blows against my face and I can feel it in my damp eyelashes.
My natural blue eyes are focused on absorbing the exact way the gravestone looks, the way the wildflowers grow beautifully around the gravestone. Carving the way Mari's name is carved into the grave. Aubrey's blue contacts match this, they mirror the way I look, they mirror my sadness. But it's fake. The contacts and her sadness.
My hands shake a bit, and I bite my tongue. I could cry, I'm sure, but I've learned to not be weak around anyone. Except Sunny, but Sunny is the exception to the rule, as he always is.
Her eyes don't even look touch me though. I bet looking at me hasn't even crossed her mourning mind tonight.
So maybe I can cry.
I bite my tongue, dig my fingernails into the ground, getting dirt underneath my fingernails, feeling sick, tears rushing from my eyes, my body violently shaking.
Aubrey hears me let out a gasp, and she quickly looks over to me, and I can see through blurry tears the way her face looses most, if not all, of it's aggression, and she bites her lip, trying to decide what to do. She takes a few deep breaths in. I don't care what she'll do. I don't care if she hugs me or calls me a faggot or if she hits me or if she leaves me or if she just keeps looking at the grave, or if she just stays in this limbo, trying to decide what to do, trying to decide if it is worth it to hug me, to care about me, to love me, to give a simple act of confession to an old friend. A stranger. At least for now.
I close my eyes tight, and try not to make a sound, just to sit there, crying silent tears, mourning the loss of an old friend, mourning the moss of an old friendship. Knowing the death of both things were more than partially my fault, and that makes me feel sick.
I feel a rough hand being placed on my wrist, I feel two long acrylic nails on my skin. I feel a warm breath against my cheek. I feel a jacket being placed over me. I feel her move her hand from my wrist to my hair. The way she strokes her hands through my hair, the way she wraps her other arm around me, the way those two long acrylic nails brush against my scalp, the way it feels so friendly and beautiful and calming and I feel perfectly at peace even though I'm still crying.
I lean into her, resting my chin on her pink hair covered strong shoulder, her warm breath against my ear, her hand still running through my hair, her arm still holding me.
I feel safer than I have in forever.
Hell, I feel safer than I have with Sunny, at least since we've remet each other.
"I love you." She whispers gently, nudges my face off her shoulder, cups my cheeks in her hands, and then kisses me gently.
(902 words)
