I love you.
The words sting my lips in the bitter cold as I mutter them down to a very special tombstone.
"I'm so sorry." I say through my tears, which fall onto the icy rock and are quickly absorbed.
I sigh, my once-long blonde hair fluttering about my shoulders.
In, out. In, out. Deep breaths, Star, deep breaths.
"I didn't cry during your funeral." I say. "I couldn't. It meant accepting that you were gone."
A rustling in the leafless trees shocks me, but I continue.
"I watched one of our home videos, from a few years ago. I cried during that. You told me you could read palms, and you took my hands in yours, intently studying them, and then told me they said I was a dork."
I place down a red flower in the snow, watching as the petals grow limp.
"You made me hot cocoa every Christmas I spent with you and we told jokes by the fire. You told me a secret once." I sigh. "You told me about your guitar."
A few more seemingly acidic tears fall into the snow. "You never played for me."
I sit in silence for a good few minutes, quietly sobbing into the folds of my scarf.
"There were so many promises you never fulfilled. You told me that you'd take me to senior prom. You told me you'd play me a song. But you never told me you loved me. Not once."
I can't take this. I probably look like such an idiot talking to my dead best friend.
"I never told you that I loved you either, while you were alive. And I did love you. As a best friend, as a brother...but I was also in love with you. Screw the was, I am in love with you, and you're DEAD. I'll never be able to tell you anything to your face ever again. I saw you die. I tried to help you, I swear I did, but I couldn't save you. I...I couldn't save you." I leaned over on the gravestone, no longer concerned if my tears would freeze my face to it. Let them. I'll never have to leave my best friend. I'll die here. We'll be here forever.
Together.
"We were supposed to have a life together!" I screamed. "I was going to kiss you at the senior prom, we were going to graduate high school together, you were going to propose after college and we were supposed to get married and have little princes and princesses and...it can't ever happen. I...I'm in love with a dead person. D*mn it, I'm in love with a dead person!"
"Sweetheart, are you okay?" I hear. An old lady had come over from another grave grave and she had a hand on my shoulder.
"No." I sob, and my shoulders shake under her grip. She kneels beside me, rubbing my back.
"2001-2019. So young." she says. "Marco. Was he your boyfriend?"
I look up at her with tears in my eyes.
"Maybe in another life." I say. "Maybe in another dimension. But not in this one."
"I know it hurts, honey." she tells me. "My husband died thirteen years ago and I still come here to talk to him."
I sniffle and a small smile forms on my lips. "Thirteen years?"
"Thirteen years. Rain, snow, sunshine. Visiting him has alerted me that it's almost my time to join him."
My eyes widen. "I...I feel like I'm dying without him." I say. "Is that...what you mean?"
The lady looks directly into my eyes. "No, you listen to me. You are still young and beautiful and capable. You shouldn't let him hold you down. Of course you should keep him in your heart but you shouldn't let him rule your life."
"That sounded...exactly like what he would have told me." I say, wiping a tear from my eye. "How do you get over it?"
The lady shrugs, and I turn my head to look back over at...at...I can't even say it...the grave of my best friend, and when I turn back she's gone.
My attention is finally back on my friend. "I graduated." I tell him. "With an honor roll GPA. And I didn't go to the prom. I got into Echo Creek University-I got my acceptance letter last week. You got into Stanford. And a bunch of other smarty-schools. I brought your letters." I say, taking a few folded pieces of paper from my pocket and placing them in the snow.
I look over to my ride, Marco's parents' minivan, and I sigh.
"I have to go." I tell him, and I place a small kiss on the gravestone. "I love you, Marco."
Although she couldn't see, an almost-transparent figure tried to grab her hand as she walked away.
"I love you too." he said.
