Ageless

Grave of a Heart

Lilly sat in the brown leather chair which stayed cornered in the dark room Wesley used to lock himself up in. Unlike him, she chose to leave the door open, loathing yet looking forwards to the knock that sounded each day at noon.

Her eyes drifted up to the clock she had placed on the opposite wall reading 12:01pm. "He is late." She mumbled.

In that moment a knock sounded at the front door. She rose from her chair with a freak and peeped through the glass window. Harvey stood with fresh, white, carnations in hand, waiting patiently.

"Go home."

"And let you spend another day alone in that room?" He replied.

"Yes."

"Well, you know, I'll wait here all day if I have to." He said as he kneeled down and sat on the porch.

"Very well. Enjoy yourself, Harvey." She sighed and shook her head, walking back to the dark room.

She sat down in the cushioned leather once more and stared at the middle of the floor. She wanted to stay faithful to her lost love, hoping one day he would appear like a knight in shining armor and break her curse with true loves kiss. She closed her eyes. She remembered his smile.

Another knock on the door, followed by a "can I come in now?" broke her train of thought.

"Just give up!" She shouted and cracked a slight smile.

"It's been three years since we met, you know I won't!"

Soon enough the carnations were placed on the middle of the floor in the dark room. He always brought them as a tribute to the place her heart lies at rest. The place her heart had stopped beating.

"You know, you stay in there too much for your own good. You're never going to move on if you keep dwelling on whatever it is that keeps you in there."

"I had a past love." She looked to the sailor with sad eyes, playing with her golden waves of hair and tugging on it as she brushed through a strand with her fingers.

"What happened to him?"

"I don't exactly know." She looks towards Harvey with a sigh, "he just disappeared."

"How long ago was it?" Harvey urged her to open up, but she saw straight through his efforts.

Instead of replying, she shook her head and started to gather her belongings.

"I apologize, but I'm afraid you're going to have to leave me be. I have business to attend to."

"Come on. Just answer my one question and I'll leave."

"When you love and loss, it feels like a lifetime no matter how long it's been."

He gave her the bliss of silence and left her in his absence to go back to her business of waiting for Wesley to return.

"Well, its you and me again, my love." She stared at the white carnations and looked up and down about the air.

"I know you're here, I know it. It feels like you're gone, but I won't let you die. Not like this." She got up and fetched a vase of water.

"I'm afraid my memories of you are fading, Wesley, but love never will. So come back to me as soon as you can, before I forget all together.."

She fell to her knees and swooped up his carnations, roughly pushing them into the water with agony.

•••

After many more years, Harvey had found love elsewhere, but still continued to come once a week to knock upon the door of the ageless woman. She answered now, and he was allowed to place white carnations on the grave of her heart.

"I want to move on." She whispered under her breath. Usually his visits passed in the silent gaze of their eyes.

"Oh?" He pondered as he fixated snowy petals and arranged them to his liking.

"But I am afraid," she continued, "what if he comes back and I'm not here?"

"Where ever your love is, if he loves you as much as you love him, he wouldn't want you to suffer." He cleared his throat, "he would want to see you thrive. He would want to see you smile."

Her eyes lifted from the flowers to Harvey's brown eyes which soon became a light in the dark.

"Wesley wouldn't want you to live your life mourning over his loss. He wouldn't want you wasting the gift of being immortal on watching his grave. If you love him, live for him. Explore the world, see everything he couldn't. Find love. And when that love dies, find it again. Be happy, for him, Lilly, be happy."

She rose from her chair with tears in her eyes and he soon wrapped his eyes around her, holding her head close to his chest as tears soaked into his white button-up. For a long time, they stood in silence.

"I loved him.." she whispered.

"I know.." he smiled, fixing his glasses before tilting her chin upwards with his thumb, "and it's because you love him that you need to let him go."

She shook her head, "what if he comes back, what if he wakes up one day alone, what if.."

"What if he isn't coming back."

Another crystal dropped from the corner of her eye and made a line down her cheek.

"Then I need to move on."

He nodded and glanced around the room. "You can start by getting out of here."

"You're right. But for just a little while longer, let me stay in this house of memory. This is the heart of my childhood."

"It is a ghost of what you lost."

"You are right again, Harvey." She wiped her eyes, "I will move on."

•••

The next morning she locked the front door of Time Fix for the last time, using all the money she had to buy a boarding pass to America. Within a week, she will have said goodbye to Harvey and his humble wife and hello to an open sea.

Her last night on the shores of England, she stepped onto the strip of small rocks and stones and sat down before the waves. The stars reflected off the water, being drowned in the light of the tall building on the ascending cliff.

She wondered if any of the ships could see it, how many had used its light to find their way home, and how many had lost it.

Somewhere across the dark waters, a new life awaited her, a way to move on. She picked a stone into her palm and tossed it out into the high tide, watching the dark water splash up as it sunk.

She rose to her feet, chucking another one into the harsh waves, letting them sink to the bottom of the sea where they belong. She threw several more until a cold wave rushed past her ankles, reflecting the light of the moon into her eyes.

She paused in her rage and her eyes went cold, "farewell, Wesley Copper.."