Circles

"Thy firmness makes my circle just" - John Donne

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end where I begun.

A girl sits alone on the damp grass crushing loose dirt between her fingers, staring at something passers-by don’t see. The dew soaks into her dress, spreading upwards as the material absorbs it; she shivers slightly from the cold, but doesn’t leave to go somewhere warmer. “Where are you Em? Why did they put you here?” Em’s voice echoes through her mind bringing back images of confusion in a dark confusing place. There was no accusation in it though, only fear… and loneliness.

Ree understood loneliness. It has been almost a year since anyone had wanted – not needed – her company. Sitting here though, she feels peaceful, even when most people found the brown mounds of dirt with their intricately designed headstones dreary and ominous. Each stone held a story of its own.

She hadn’t want to go to the funeral when they’d held it; it was too much like admitting Em was gone, she went though, and watched people cry for someone they hardly knew. At least it helped her parents. To Ree saying goodbye seemed wrong. Em wasn’t completely gone, not really, but it was hard to explain how.

“I thought I’d find you here.” A voice behind her broke Ree’s chain of thought. “You’re always here now.” He wasn’t scolding her like a child, merely observing. He didn’t expect a response, Ree normally sat here in total silence, meditating almost. Seeing her so quiet is weird, he thought, she normally bounced around everywhere.

“Dylan, do you ever wonder what happens after…?” she tapered off, but they both knew what she meant. She looked up at him eyes standing out blue next to her blonde hair framing her fine features. “Can it really be nothing? Like they just stop existing?”

“Isn’t that the mystery? Wouldn’t it be worse if we knew there was nothing? There’s always hope things will be better afterwards.” He was ever the philosopher, which you’d never guess by looking at him. Em wouldn’t have approved she thought, and giggled. She was often like this, so he didn’t comment on her laughter.

Her face darkened again though. “It was my fault; I was the one who was supposed to watch her in case she couldn’t stay on. I looked away, only for a minute, but I did and she was gone.”

“She wouldn’t have blamed you.” He looked so sincere, for that minute it was hard to tell he never even met Em.

“How do you know that?”

“You tell me all the time of the times she was there, with you, doing everything from pulling you out of trouble, to making it with you. You tell me how you spent hours in silence, building a cubby house even when she was too old for playing pretend.” He listed these things so rationally, logically, but he wasn’t just guessing. “If she was who you said, she wouldn’t have blamed you, or anyone. Shit happens.”

For a minute they sit in silence, Ree absorbing everything he said. She smiles, grabs his hand, using it to pull herself up, and slowly walks away knowing that she’ll always come back to here, to where Em would always be.