supernova

37

August Thirty-First.

It landed on a Tuesday this year.

I took a day off, and Atlas decided to take one off too.

"Do you mind if I come with you?" he asked as I was about to leave for the cemetery.

"No, not at all. Do you wanna drive?" I asked and he nodded and grabbed his keys.

The ride there was silent. Atlas followed me to the tombstone and I looked at the rose bush next to it.

"That bush was planted with my mom's ashes," I told him.

"It's beautiful. It's like your middle name, Rosalyn."

"My mom loved roses but didn't want my middle name to be Rose, so it was Rosalyn."

"My middle name is my mom's dad's name, Abbas. That's what she wanted to name me, but didn't after all the racism she faced as a Muslim, so she named me Atlas."

"It sucks that our parents had to deal with racist fucking pieces of shit."

I sat down and crossed my legs.

"Hey Dad, hey Mom. It's been three years, Dad. This will be my fourth year without you. I brought someone with me today, this is Atlas. Remember the friend I was telling you about? Yea, he's friends with Michael too. Mom, you know both of them. You've met them a few times before, remember? I read your letter the other day. I miss you so much. It's hard without you guys, but you're probably having fun doing whatever."

I played with my necklace. I seemed to do that often at the cemetery. I just felt more connected to them.

I went on for around another ten minutes talking to the ground as if I were having a real conversation with my parents. Every once in a while, Atlas would say something too.

"You know," Atlas said, "When I first met your daughter, I thought she was one of the most stubborn and rude people ever. She was closed off and cold like a brick wall at night. She warms up to you so slowly, you don't even realize it. And then day, you're all confused like wait, why did I think she was so horrible? She still can be horrible when she makes fun of me for the fifth time in a day for only eating Fettuccine Alfredo at Italian restaurants," he joked.

We just sat there for a while, taking in the silence of the cemetery and all the people resting in it.

I wiped away a couple tears, "We should go," I proposed.

"Let's go home," he agreed.

We got home and I changed into a tube top and boxers and put my hair in a french braid. I felt Atlas come up behind me.

"You never explained your tattoos to me." His finger traced the angel wing on my back, and he kissed the outline of the tattoo.

I moved my braid to the side to show him two of my three tattoos.

"They're all for my dad. The stethoscope on the back of my neck is because he was an oncologist. He loved his job, and that's were I really get my interest in science. He was so passionate about it, I grew up with him explaining things to me, words I didn't understand until highschool."

Atlas's mouth slowly kissed the back of my neck.

"The wings?" he asked.

"When I was really little, my dad would call me Angel sometimes. One day, I asked him what exactly an angel was. I knew what an angel was, wings and shiny, and stuff, but I wanted to hear it from him. He told me he called me an angel because of the way I played with all the kids at the park, and when I saw someone playing alone, I'd go join them. He said I was loving and nurturing. I told him, I'd call him angel because he was a doctor. So I called him angel until I was eight years old."