the day you died. Your sins only disappeared when you did, and even then, sometimes sins were eternal.
Mine were, memorialized by the stones we were about to see.
Eventually I took us off the highway, down a long, straight road that split through a podunk town in the middle of grassy plains. One gas station, one tiny police station and an even tinier firehouse. It really was nothing special.
Jaz’s brows came together as we drove through the town. “Where the hell are we? Is this Children of the Corn or something? Are you going to leave me in the tall grass?” She grinned at her own joke.
I shot her a look. “There’s something I need to show you,” I said. “We’re almost there.”
And we were. Just ten more minutes and I was pulling off the main road and onto a dirt pathway that led to the town’s cemetery. It had grown over the years, some of the older stones overgrown by weeds and dirt, but besides that, it was exactly as I remembered.
I really tried not to think of this place, because when I did, I was reminded of the truth. My truth wasn’t pretty.
“Okay,” Jaz whispered, “this is a little creepy. I think I’d rather you throw me in the tall grass or ditch me in the cornfields.” When I parked the car and lifted an eyebrow at her, she added, “Or maybe that was an exaggeration, but still. Old cemeteries in the middle of nowhere are super creepy, Mr. Grumps.”
No one else was here, which wasn’t shocking. I turned off the car and stuck the keys in my pocket before getting out, and Jaz hopped out, gazing around us. Meeting her on the other side of the car, she immediately stepped closer to me, as if being close to me could shield her from how creepy she thought this place was.
I thought Jaz exaggerated on a lot of things, but she was right. This place was creepy.
My hand found hers, her fingers slow to intertwine with mine. “Come on,” I said, pulling her towards the back, away from the dirt path that split the cemetery. Even though it’d been ages since I’d been here, it felt like just yesterday. Time was a funny thing when death was involved. Years could go by, but you could blink and sometimes catch yourself thinking about the past like it was easy.
The stones that were my destination were in the back, forgotten by the townsfolk around here, and willingly abandoned by me. This was a place I never wanted to go back to, never wanted to see, but at the same time, Jaz seeing the names on the stones would be the only way to make her understand.
There were two of them. There technically should’ve been three, but my mother’s rotten boyfriend was buried wherever his family had wanted him to be.
Georgina Hall and David Hall were etched in the stone faces, along with their years of life. My mother had quite a few more than David, but still, even now, I thought it’d been too many.
She’d been a terrible woman, and an even shittier mother. Though I tried not to remember her, it was impossible not to, some days. When you were raised in a household that hated you, with a mother who made you feel like shit and hid you away from the world…when your mother brought home a man who took it upon himself to beat the living daylights out of you for just existing, the pain never really went away.
Jaz spotted the last names on the stones, her hand tightening its hold on mine. “Oh, Jacob. I’m sorry.” Standing here, she thought she knew the whole story. She probably assumed I’d lost my family in some terrible accident years ago, seeing as how the end dates for both Georgina and David were the same, right down to the day.
She didn’t, though. She didn’t know anything.
This…it was all still a lie.
“Don’t be, it was a miserable family,” I said, the scar on my abdomen burning with memories. “There’s…I brought you here to tell you something. I’ve never told anyone this, so…” I stumbled over my words, as if I hadn’t rehearsed this countless of times last night and today, even in my head as we drove here.
Jaz stepped closer to me, leaning into me to say, “It’s okay, Jacob.”
I winced. “I grew up poor. My mother was always down on her luck, she said. She had an irrational hatred of