I can remember what he said to me the last time I saw him alive. "You could never love me."
And with that, he was gone, and I never did seem him again. I was grateful, the day he walked out, that he hadn't used the occasion as an opportunity to bring me down lower than he had already. A month or so later, his brother called and informed me that he had been killed in a car accident, going 90 and high on coke, straight into an embankment. It was in those moments when the earth dropped away that I learned to regret never having lived out with him what life I may have had.
Which brings me to what I set out to do.
I like the way the earth smells after the rain, sweet and female. Once you pass the Mason-Dixon this is doubly so, due to the heat. I was wearing sandals and a simple sundress, and I could feel the cold drops fling off the grass and splatter high up my leg. I came to a wrought iron gate that stood wide open and paused for a moment. I took two pills out of my dress pocket and swallowed them dry. It was now or never.
I followed the gravel path down towards the back of the cemetery, which took me down a hill and through what could only be described as a grove. There weren't too many plots here, because digging through the roots of the trees would've been too much of a pain in the ass. It was getting dark, and the overcast sky was lit an unreal ocean bottom blue, hurting my eyes. But this was a path I had been down a thousand times since the day he died, and I knew my way without aid.
I came to the plot of earth that was marked as his for eternity. A monument with his name, simple and elegantly carved, sat at the head of his eternal bed. For as long as I walked the earth, in agony at the absence of his loss, why should he rest in peace? I took of my sundress and sandals and lay on his grave.