Stuck With Him

Chapter eleven [ 11 ]

Chapter eleven: Gone But Never Forgotten

I don't consider myself to be a sentimental person. The only nostalgic habit I allow myself to have is taking photographs because they really enliven my blog entries. Apparently writing about current affairs isn't as interesting to others as it is to me. A photo here and there helps keep people happy and reading on.

All that put aside, there was still something I had been putting off but knew I'd eventually have to do. Seeing that since it was Sunday, today was as good day as any other to go visit my parents' graves. It's not like I didn't want to go there. I did want to, I was just scared of losing it while I'm there. Yvonne Perkins and her husband Lennie who took care of the graveyard would tell the whole town about my breakdown and then everyone would want to bake me something as a consolation. I had learnt to hate those pity pies too much to enjoy their delicious taste. They reminded me too much of the time I got them due to my parents' unexpected death.

I made my way to the graveyard, flowers and candles stuffed in a basket I just picked up on my way out of the house. It felt weird to be back here. I hadn't visited my parents grave for a while. First when they died, I went there every single day, demanding them to come back to me or at least have a pretty damn good reason for leaving me. But they never did.

I knelt down on their graves, lit the candles and composed the flowers. Then I leaned in, inspecting the headstones. The one on my right said: Michelle Alison Harper, 13.4.1981- 15.6.2005. Gone but never forgotten. And the one on my left belonged to my father and
read: John Christopher Harper 22.12.1979- 15.6.2005. Dele guae te delent. It might be a rather odd quote to put on a headstone, "Destroy what destroys you", but it had been my father's favorite quote of all time and it would have felt pretentious to simply write some other lame citation instead of it. My father was one of a kind - it made sense that his tombstone wasn't ordinary either.

"I miss you", I said quietly and pressed my hand on my mother's headstone, as if touching it would bring them closer to me somehow. I have often wondered what they thought of me. Were they proud of me? Disappointed? Angry? Happy? Sad? Or did they care at all?

I was completely lost in my thoughts when someone came up to me. "Your parents?" Jax asked as he approached me.

I snapped my head in his direction. "Did you follow me here?"

"I'm actually visiting too. My dad and sister are right down that row", Jax said and pointed to the direction I had come from. I'm not much of a blusher but then my cheeks turned bright red and I felt horrible. Egomaniac much, Harper?

"Oh, I'm sorry, Jax. I didn't mean to sound
like... Well, to sound like I sounded like."

Jax smiled a little. There was something different about him that morning. He seemed more like an actual human being than the bad boy he had been playing all week. "It's okay."

"So, uh, how long's it been..?" I asked trying not to pry but wanting to know more nonetheless.

"Six months since my sister and thirteen years since my dad."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It hasn't been pretty. Most of my time is spent not knowing where the hell I am or who the hell I'm with." He sighed and was silent for a while, probably thinking about what that had been like; I know I was. A year ago I wouldn't have known how it felt; I wouldn't have understood how losing yourself could possibly make you feel better. But then I met Alex and now I was painfully aware of just how much drinking and partying could make you feel better. For a while. Until it doesn't anymore and you just feel empty, like I had been feeling ever since London.

"And every time you wake up, you ask yourself: 'Why am I doing this to myself? Why can't I just let it go?'" I continued his description without thinking. After the words fell out of my mouth, I turned to look at him. His eyes were already on me, they were wide and full of astonishment.