KIMBERLY NICOLE BROOKS. REST IN PEACE.
The wind is knocked right out of me.
Her plot isn’t overgrown or neglected. In fact, there’s a massive bouquet of blue tulips already there, the color rich enough to hold a twinge of lilac at the base of the even petals.
Blue tulips.
I look down at the irises in my hand. Shit. Blue tulips were definitely her favorite. I can hear her now, telling me that she loved them because they matched her eyes.
Irises were just the first flowers I ever got her. If Kim were here, she’d refuse to talk to me for the rest of the day. Or the week if she was feeling especially salty about it.
God, I loved her, but I hated when she did that.
Love her, I correct myself. I will always love her. What the fuck is wrong with me thinking about that right now?
I put my sad bouquet of irises next to the tulips, and my hand finds the coarse gray stone. My fingers trace her name, the past few months leading to this moment.
“Kim…”
I stop, placing my whole hand on the headstone, all of the feelings I’ve kept bottled up hitting me at once. I can’t do it. I can’t be here. Not yet.
But I take a deep breath and try to start again.
“I… I don’t believe this.” I shake my head, throat burning. “I can’t believe it. But I face it every single day when I wake up and you’re not here.”
There’s a stab of pain in my temple, radiating out from a single point, almost sizzling. I rub it with my fingertips and fight to continue.
“If I could do it over, I wouldn’t have gotten so angry at the party,” I say finally. “I wouldn’t have forced that conversation in the car. I would have listened when you said you wanted…”
To turn around and not see me there. I swallow, her words echoing around my head. They still hurt, but it’s a softer pain than what I’m used to.
And this isn’t about my pain.
“I would have given you the time apart that you wanted. I would have… I would have let you drive,” I say with a harsh chuckle. “You would have definitely laughed at that,” I say, almost hearing the sound from somewhere just out of view. Almost.
I open my mouth again, wanting to say so much, but the thoughts devolve into a jumble of words and sadness, too messy to string together. I tighten my grip on the headstone, everything building and building until my broken brain finally erupts. A sharp, stabbing pain courses through my temple as tiny flashes of light radiate inward from the corner of my eye.
Holy fuck.
“Once upon a time there was a boy…，” a voice says from behind me, the words soft enough, gentle enough, to send a scattering of goose bumps up my arm.
At first, through the fog of pain, I think it’s Kim. Another hallucination. But the voice isn’t hers.
I turn quickly, expecting to see someone, but I’m met only with the rustling trees. My vision blurs, then clears. Pain bounces behind my eyes, so I slam them shut, rubbing my temples until it fades enough for me to reach into my pocket and pull out a Tylenol bottle.
I struggle with the child-lock lid before I finally free two pills into my palm and dry swallow them.
But the voice isn’t gone. “He was sad and alone,” it echoes behind me.
This time when I turn around, my head is clear enough that I see a girl in a sunshine-yellow pullover standing a few steps away, by the sea of pink flowers. She has long, wavy brown hair that seems to blow softly in time with the trees behind her.
She studies me with such uncertainty that I have to wonder if the voice came from someone else. But we’re the only two people here.
I rub my eyes and try to get them to focus. Something about her is… familiar. Did she go to Ambrose? I don’t think so. I knew just about everyone who went there, and I definitely think I would remember her.
“Hi,” I say, raising my hand in the world’s most awkward wave.
She turns to look over her shoulder, as if she’s searching for the person I’m actually waving to.
“Do I know you?” I ask when she turns back to look at me. I’m still trying to place her face, my brain running through sports camps and football games and hallways. She shakes her head no, and though I could swear I’ve seen her before, I don’t press the point. “Did you say something? Just now?”
The girl hesitates, her hazel eyes wide with curiosity. Or maybe surprise. Or maybe confusion that I just had to wrestle with a child-lock lid for a whole minute and a half. “I… didn’t think you’d hear me,” she says.