crash & burn - e. buckley

018

02x07

Jamie always loved Halloween. From as early as she could remember, it was her favourite holiday. She would force her brothers to go trick or treating with her, and if her parents couldn't get her a costume she would find a way to make it herself. She would gather old pieces of fabric laying around the house, cut up her clothes (which enraged her mother) and use really anything she could find to put together the scariest costume. 

As she neared the gravestone with a bouquet of flowers in hand, she had a hard time remembering what used to be so great about Halloween.  All the memories of trick-or-treating, scaring other children, watching horror movies and eating candy until you puked had been replaced by memories of a crash. Those memories took over her mind so much that she had to distract herself on this day, or she wouldn't survive it. 

So the past few years, on the day before halloween, she had either been working or her friends had gotten the assignment to distract her. But alas, here she was. No work to distract her, no friends to throw a party, just her and the quiet graveyard filled with spirits waiting for their loved ones to visit.

There were fresh flowers on the gravestone. Of course, he'd been here. She placed her bouquet down next to them, along with a blue teddybear she brought, before sitting down in front of the stone. She knew what the name on the gravestone was all too well, after all, she chose it. Still, for one second before she read, she hoped that another name will be on it. That the past six years would have been a terrible nightmare and nothing terrible had happened.

She got no such luck. As she read the name, she felt her chest start to constrict, and she clawed on it as if she could simply rip her heart out. She knew this would happen. This always happened. She never had been able to face the grave without feeling as if she was physically dying. As if all the air had been punched out of her and her heart was giving up and would never be able to beat again.  

Olivia Story Hayes-Miller
17 November 2009 - 30 October 2012
Beloved daughter

"Hi baby," she said between the tears that had started to fall. It'd been way too long since she came here, so the grief and the guilt had been building up for a while now. "Sorry I haven't visited in a while, work's been busy." 

Deep breath in, deep breath out.  "I miss you so much." The tears were streaming down her face now, and there was no use in trying to stop them. Olivia had been gone for way longer than she had been alive, and yet she still existed in everything Jamie saw. 

Every time she saw a blonde child on the street, or in a playground, she'd find herself holding her breath a little, hoping that when the child turned around it would have her eyes, and her nose, but her father's smile. Every time she heard her name, she'd expect her to show up. She saw her in all her favourite things. In every cat, every dandelion, in the sky and the sea, and every song and every lullaby. 

It was still hard for Jamie to come to terms with what'd happened. There's a saying that parents are never meant to outlive their children, and she felt the weight of grief everyday crushing her in it's grip, refusing to let her go for even one second.

She sat there in front of the grave, sometimes talking, sometimes just trying to feel the spirit of a lively three-year old running around. What mattered was that she was there, and by the time she got up to leave, she had been there for several hours and the sun had already set. 

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Abalone Cove, Vista Point. One lonely hiker who fell off the trail. Correction, one lonely hiker who shouldn't even be there. Bobby informed the team that the trail had been closed off a few years back, but every once in a while someone ignored the signs and decided to hike there anyways. Idiots.