When former beauty pageant queen, Ellie Wilde, hears of her grandmother's sickness, she's the first to offer to drive her to her chemotherapy. What she didn't know she was agreeing to was an obnoxiously cheerful blond boy somehow nudging his way int...
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What are you doing?
I've had a very busy day of binge watching. Why?
Come to the graveyard. I'm working.
No offense, Cooper, but I'd rather gouge my eyes out than go spend my free time in a creepy cemetery.
You said no offense but I'm still offended.
C'mon. It'll be cool. I'll show you around. I even have a cool golf cart to get around the grounds. I might even let you drive it...
Tempting but I'll have to pass.
I'm dying, Ellie.
Well then I guess it's a good thing you're already at a graveyard.
Where's your Christmas spirit? Aren't people supposed to be nice around this time of year? I didn't know I was dealing with a scrooge.
Christmas is a week away. I don't have to be nice yet.
But the idea of you sitting in a golf cart in a cemetery, texting me with a disappointed pout on your lips makes me feel guilty. So I guess I'll come. Just text me the address.
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"So why exactly do you have a bag of plants?" Ellie asks, glancing over at Cooper in the driver's seat of the golf cart.
His lips quirk upwards as he reaches for the bag, pulling out a familiar green plant and handing it to her. She takes it cautiously and awaits his response, studying the way his entire body seems to move with enthusiasm.
"It's mistletoe," he says, looking to her for a reaction. When he reads hers, he laughs. "Don't worry. I'm not going to make you kiss me. We're going to put these on some of the graves."
She looks down at the mistletoe in her hand, turning it over to examine it. "Why are we doing that?"
"I read somewhere once that mistletoe symbolizes life that does not die. I don't know how true that is, but I like it. So I choose to believe it's true. Since mistletoe is best known as a plant we see around Christmas time, I've made a tradition of going around the grounds and placing mistletoe on some of the graves. It just feels sort of symbolic. Like a present to the dead."
She stares at him in awe, as she always seems to do. The way his mind works fascinates her. The things he says carry such meaning but he says them in a way in which you would think they were meaningless. The delivery of his thoughts is so casual that some might miss the depth of what he's actually saying.
"They're also a good excuse to convince a girl to make out with you," he says, ruining her celebration of his intellectual mind.
She rolls her eyes, tossing the mistletoe in her hand at him as he laughs and swats it away. Eventually, he picks it back up and sets it neatly on her lap, shooting her a quick smile before putting the golf cart into drive and taking off.
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"C'mon, don't be scared. They're dead. They aren't going to climb out of their graves and pull you down to the fiery pits of hell with them," Cooper says, rolling his eyes as Ellie stands on the path and watches him.
"You shouldn't talk about them like that."
He scoffs. "Ellie. These are my buddies. We're cool. Now come over here and meet Ernie."
She furrows her eyebrows but relinquishes a sigh as she does as he says, carefully making her way past the graves and joining him in front of a headstone that does, in fact, belong to a man named Ernie.
"How do you know him?" She asks, arms crossed over her chest as a chill runs down her spine.
"I don't," he says, looking up to Ellie from his squatted position and pointing at the headstone. "Ernie died in 1917."
"Then why are you leaving a mistletoe for him? I thought you were just doing this for the people you know."
"I know a lot of them, in my head anyway. You see, working in a graveyard can be sort of dark, maybe even a little depressing—"
"You don't say."
"So you have to find a way to pass the time. I like to make up stories." He points back to Ernie's grave. "Beloved son, husband, and father. But Ernie was only twenty-two years old. Maybe he got drafted into World War I, had to leave his wife and kid behind and never came home."
"Isn't that a bit... dark? Making up stories about the dead?"
He shrugs, placing the mistletoe securely next to Ernie's grave before rising back to his feet. "Maybe. But the world without an imagination is an even darker place."
