Grayscale

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It never ceased to amaze me how beautiful this graveyard was. It was getting warmer now, and the vines were turning green again. The flowers that before were killed off by cold waves were now flourishing. Centuries old headstones in the front led way to newer and newer headstones as you walked or drove towards the back, where the newest, shiny, granite and marble headstones were. The newer ones were blanketed in flowers and decorations, as they had been last time I was here.

That time actually wasn't that much different from this one.

The only real difference then was that Reed had only been coming to visit Madeline – now he was coming home to her, forever.

Something I had never taken note of before, Madeline's headstone had left enough room for another name to be carved in. It made sense. Soulmates shared a headstone, like they had shared a life. I just somehow thought that because Reed wouldn't spend a life with her, he wouldn't share a headstone, but why would that be true? Death didn't diminish their bond.

He was hers. He'd always been hers – even when he was mine – and if his name were carved into any other piece of stone, it would be wrong.

His name wasn't there yet, though. I guess when they'd had the headstone made they didn't want to look ahead to his death, having just narrowly avoided it at the time. He hadn't been gone quite long enough yet for them to have had that done, so today, he would be laid to rest in an unmarked grave. It was almost unsettling. Someone who had meant so much to me would have nothing to mark his time on this world, his presence in the lives of all the people who loved him, even if only for a few days.

Sure, there were pictures, and there would always be memories, and there would be his Facebook page – but this was something different. This was what would remain when nothing else did. This would be his crumbling chunk of stone people only passed by in a hundred years, wondering who he could have possibly have been, what kind of life he might have led. This is what would be left, and right now, it was nothing.

I was numb through the ceremony – not the kind of numb created by digging a blade so deep into my wrist it was a miracle I wasn't six feet deep, too, but a different kind of numb. A blank, grey, nothing. I didn't think, and I scarcely dared to breathe. I clutched a wad of tissues in my hand, but I didn't shed a single tear watching his coffin being lowered into the ground. There were no tears left to shed.