The Graveyard

I have no idea how things turned out this way. I wish I could just rewind an hour and stay home instead of coming here. I have no idea how to tell the guy that we're not actually going to meet my girlfriend. I don't have a girlfriend, I don't even want one.

It all started an hour ago.

I locked the front door of my house and got on my bike. I cycled for a good 20 minutes before arriving at my destination. I locked my bike before I remembered that I forgot the most important thing. I unlocked the bike and headed to a house owned by one of the few gardeners in town. 
The lights were turned off, so I assumed nobody was home. I left my bike on the side of the road and made my way to the backyard. I had been coming there before seeing my parents for the last three months. I never took so much flowers that the gardener would notice that I had been there, but enough for both my mother and father. I crouched down and did my best to pick the most average flowers there was.

"What are you going to do with those?"

I got startled by the voice. I stood up and turned my head towards the voice. A boy about the same age as me was leaning on the wall. He was looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"Uhh.. nothing. I was just leaving", I said and got up.

"I've seen you here before, you know", he said. "You're always stealing flowers from our garden."

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know you had noticed." I feel so embarrassed.

"Are they for your girlfriend? Boyfriend? They must be special."

I didn't even get the chance to answer him before he spoke again, "Hey, let's make a deal. I'll let you take flowers for her from our garden if I think they deserve it."

"How do you decide whether you let me take them or not?"

"Take me to her and I'll decide."

Without thinking, I begin walking out of the yard. I take my bike from the ground and start to walk beside it towards my destination. The guy is following me, keeping a distance of a couple of meters. I don't know why I'm doing this. Lying to him. I don't know how to explain to him that we are not going to see my girlfriend, or my boyfriend, or my partner.

After 10 minutes of walking in silence we arrive at the cemetery. I can see the guy's expression changing. I have no idea what he's thinking.

"What an odd place to meet your significant other", he finally says. That was not what I expected him to say at all. He is so clueless that it makes me want to laugh. I shrug and park my bike in a bike stand in front of the gate. I head towards the final destination with him following slightly closer this time. I stop at a fairly big tombstone. There's my mom's name on the left side of it and her birthday and the day she died right under her name. The same information of my father is on the right side of the stone. I set the flowers in front of the stone and stand up again.

"Oh..." the boy finally comes to the realization that we are indeed not here to see my girlfriend. "I'm so sorry, I thought-"

"It's all good. I understand why you imagined that it's for someone that's alive. Most rebellious teenagers have parents."

He moves to stand right beside me. We both stand there watching the tombstone, not saying anything.

"If you don't mind me asking, when did they die?" he asks after a while.

"About five years ago? In a car accident. I was 12 at the time." I smile sadly at him.

The guy takes my hand in his, which is fine by me. Oddly, I feel safe and secure with this total stranger that I met less than an hour ago.

"You must miss them a lot." His voice is quiet, almost like a whisper.

"I do, but it gets easier after a few years."

We spend a little while standing there quietly. It's not an awkward silence though, it's a comfortable silence, a kind of silence where conversations happen without actually speaking. We walk towards the gate, still hand in hand. I take my bike from the bike stand where I had left it when we came. I walk with the guy's hand in my other hand and walking the bike with the other hand.

We arrive at the guy's house after what feels like only a few minutes. I smile at him and he smiles back at me. I let go of my bike, and it falls down on the ground. I put my arms around the guy and hug him. I must have taken him by surprise, because it takes a few seconds for him to hug me back. Hugging him feels like coming home and sleeping in your own bed after a damn long trip. It feels like oversized hoodies and drinking hot chocolate under a blanket on a cold winter day.

"Thank you," I express my gratitude after we back away from the hug.

"For what?" he asks, confused.

"I don't know, for today I guess."

We both smile. I turn to pick my bike up from the ground and turn to walk away.

"They deserve it," he says before I get too far to not hear him. I turn to look at him. "The flowers. They deserve them. You can come get them from our garden anytime." 

The smile on my face makes him smile too, and we part ways after the most random hangout ever. This was not a goodbye though. I hope I will see him a lot from now on, now that I have the permission to go visit his garden.