The wrong happy ending

dear Will

Dear Will,

Yesterday on my walk through the fields, I saw a lonely daffodil. Its yellow head taking in the sunlight. It reminded me of you.

"Please don't be mad, I couldn't find any black shoes." Baby hooks his arm into mine. The warmth radiating from beneath his dark grey sleeves feels foreign against my skin. I let him drag me over the wet grass, morning dew drops glistening in the cold sun and soaking my socks in my leather black brogues. 

"Don't worry about it," I answer softly. Baby's glittery sneakers squeak through the swampy green, reflecting faintly in the greyish morning light. He dyed his hair back into caramel brown, framing his eyes beautifully. Still, it's otherworldly to see him dressed so plain. If it weren't for the disco ball bright sneakers I would've never believed it was truly him.

My mom once told me, not one colouring pencil could  ever capture the yellow of a flower. For its vibrance and liveliness couldn't be contained into a tiny stalk of graphite. Bleak on paper, warm in the sun... 

It wouldn't do the daffodil justice

as life didn't do you either. 

"Leo feels really sorry he couldn't make it. He told me to give you this."

Baby zips open the bag slung around his shoulder and takes out a piece of cake wrapped in rustling aluminium foil. He carefully hands it over to me. His warm fingers brush with my cold ones and I huff out a laugh. My breath dances like a smokey cloud in the chilly air. 

"His infamous chocolate pie. Tell him I'm really thankful for the effort."

Baby smiles with me, "Just give it a chance, it's not as bad as Jayson claims it is."

How it was able to bloom in the coldest days before the awakening spring was beyond my mind. It stood tall, even when the stinging wind tried to blow its petals off its stalk.

I tried to understand it the way I tried to understand you. 

In the end, I could only wonder.

We silently walk over the narrow path towards the scattered pile of darkly dressed people between the gravestones. Their marble letters and dates gleam eerily in the sun. Joana's face covered with tear tracks and black tainted sunglasses turns my way as I try to disappear behind Baby's shoulder. 

"It's so weird to be doing this again," Baby whispers while granting polite smiles and nods at the sad faces we pass by. 

"Di Angelo," I turn around to see Zoë and Dakota with an envelope in his grasp.

"Our condolences," Zoë says as her frail fingers lingers on my shoulder for a bit. 

"We're really sorry," Dakota echoes as he hands me over the envelope. I don't need to tear open the coarse blue paper to know the one-hundredth flower-coded card is waiting in there for me.I force a smile on my lips.

"Thanks guys."  

Brighter days are coming.

The daffodil knew that.

You knew that.

I crouch down into the shimmering blades of grass.

"Here we are again, old friend," I mutter as I lay my hand onto the grey stone, letting its freezing cold bite into the skin of my fingers. Candle lights flicker in the wind and glow orange on the granite name before me.