the next, the sun a golden glow across the manicured lawns of the cemetery.
It’s comforting here. Quiet. Solitary. And while others might find it odd that I love this place so much, I try to explain it off as an appreciation for the sculptures and art, for the large mausoleums with their crawling ivy and ornate iron gates. It feels like walking into history.
This is also a place where I can think and have an excuse not to be home planning the next social gathering.
Grant has taken a lot from me, but not this. I often wonder if he saw it as too far a line to cross.
“You look like I feel.”
Twisting around at the deep voice, I see a man backlit by the sun, his face obscured by shadow where he stands in the next row of headstones.
Tall with dark hair, the man has broad shoulders and is dressed in a dark suit, his hands tucked in his pockets.
I don’t immediately say anything, and he shifts his feet, glancing up at the sky and back to me.
“Sorry, I just saw you sitting there and you look-“
His voice trails off as he shrugs a shoulder.
“I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”
“No,” I say, turning more so that my back isn’t to him.
“It’s fine. I didn’t know you were standing behind me.”
I think he smiles, but I’m not sure, the shadows across his face too thick. “These places tend to make people oblivious.”
A thread of recognition coils through me, of what, I’m not sure. Something about him is so familiar. “Do I know you?”
A shake of his head, black hair falling across his forehead. “I wouldn’t know from where.”
Neither would I. But still, there is something. “Do you come here often?”
He’s quiet for a second, but when he speaks again, his voice is playful, his head cocking to the side.
“Kind of an odd question to ask here, don’t you think?”
Well, crap. It did sound like a pick up line, in a cemetery of all places. My cheeks heat.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine. And yes. I’m here once a month at least. Sometimes more.”
That explains where I’ve seen him before. “Are you visiting family?”
“A friend. He died young and didn’t know many people, so I feel I owe it to him to be here.”
“Oh. Was he sick?”
Shit...Shut up, Adeline. You’re being rude.
I can’t help it, though. I’m drawn to this stranger, aggravated at the shadow that keeps his eyes hidden, that obscures his lips. Squinting doesn’t help, the sun is a fireball behind him, a brilliant light that edges around his body as if scared or unable to touch him.
“Mentally, maybe.” A pause as he takes a step closer. “He killed himself.”
I have an immediate visceral reaction to what he says, my body flinching, pain spreading out like a slow, agonizing rot through every cell. I try to ignore the slap of memory across my face, images of the night I found my father dead at his desk. The blood had been so thick across his desk.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No,” I say, interrupting him with a fake smile that I can barely force. “It’s not what you said. Well, it is. But -“
Breathe, Adeline...
“It’s just that we have that in common. My father-“
I can’t finish the thought, not sure that I’ve ever admitted the truth out loud.
“It’s an unfortunate thing to have in common,” he says, voice careful, quieter than it had been before.
What is it about tragedy that can pull two people together? A barrier has been dropped, and the man steps closer to me, the shadows finally slipping away to reveal a face that traps the air in my lungs.
I know him.
I am sure of it.
And if his friend is only a few feet from where my parents are buried, I must have seen him before without registering it.
It’s not a stretch to say I am always off in my own little world. I’m good with faces, though. Not so much with names.
But his face, it isn’t something easily forgotten.
The golden color of his skin is the only feature that proves he is alive and not a sculpture created by an artist’s loving hand.
His square jaw is strict, his skin dipping beneath cheekbones that are a blade beneath his eyes. A perfectly straight nose leads to a set of lips that are full on the bottom and carved on top. Cruel lips. Seductive.
I drag my gaze up to his eyes to see a grey so light