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I didn’t come here often, I wasn’t even sure why. Maybe I felt like it was easier to remember her in my head than it was to come down here and be reminded that she was in the ground beneath me, rotting away. I inhaled through my nose as I finally came to a stop, the gravestone with her name etched into it, a harsh reminder of the reality I faced.
“Fuck I miss you,” I muttered, wondering why I didn’t feel strange talking to a concrete slab sticking out of the ground. “I still don’t understand.”
Pulling my wallet from my back pocket, I slipped out her picture and dropped onto the ground, bending my knees and resting my arms on them. I held her photo out in front of me, her smiling face caused the corner of my mouth to twitch up.
It was her graduation photo. Her cap sat on her head, slightly tilted to the side, and her hair hung in ringlets around her face. I couldn’t help the smile that formed, as I remembered hiding her hair straightener that morning. She hated her curls, but I loved them. The way they felt as I tangled my fingers through them, how they effortlessly bounced back into place when I teased her and tugged on them.
“Macy’s got your curls,” I told her quietly. “They’re just like yours. Same color and everything.”
I stared at the picture, half of me expecting her to laugh. But the smile stayed stoic. The picture the same since the day I took it.
“She reminds me so much of you. Always laughing and singing…” I swallowed against the lump in my throat, “…it feels good. Knowing I have her means I’ll always have a reminder of you. I don’t want to ever forget you.”
I felt horrible saying those words, but it was the truth. I was scared of my feelings for Hadley because I feared that moving on would mean leaving Kim behind.
“I’ve…” I cleared my throat, unable to find the words. “I’ve never wanted anyone but you. And now…”
A stabbing pain hit me in the chest. I ground my teeth as I stared at the picture, into the eyes of the woman who I stood up and promised to love forever.
“It’s bad enough you’ve had to watch me fucking around with other women these past couple years,” I said, my voice tense with disgust in myself. “But my heart, or whatever the fuck was left of it that you didn’t take with you, was always reserved foryou.”
I hung my head between my arms, disappointed in myself and ashamed that I even thought that maybe someone else could take her place.
Kim would have been the perfect mother.
Attentive, loving, funny. She ticked every single box, and I knew that she would have been amazing.
But seeing Hadley with Macy, made me think she ticked those boxes too.
I growled out loud in frustration. “How do I share my heart, Kim? I don’t want to, but there’s a part of me that just wants too badly to protect her. And not just because she’s in trouble. I want to keep her from my brothers. I don’t want them to touch her either.”
I felt my throat closing as the emotions began to build.
“I hate thinking of another man touching you. It kills me. But thinking of them with her makes me fucking angry, too.”
I was so confused.
“Why did you have to fucking leave!” I shouted, my voice echoing through the trees and causing a flurry of birds to fly off into the sky. Anger burned off me as I tilted my head to the sky and screamed, “Why did you have to leave!”
If she had of lived, this would have never been an issue. I would never be fighting with my emotions because Kim would be beside me. We’d be raising Macy together, she’d be showing her how to bake and dress up and play with makeup, while I taught her how to throw a punch if someone was mean to her.
I would never be wondering whether my feelings for Hadley were real because I would have never had them in the first place.
Why couldn’t she just be alive?
Why did she have to be taken from me?
I felt a tear drop onto my cheek and knew that it was time for me to go. I took a deep breath and moved forward, crouching in front of the gravestone. “I love you so much. I don’t know what I’m feeling right now, but I hope like hell you understand. I love you so much, Kim. Don’t think I’ll ever forget you, because I won’t. And no matter what happens, Macy will grow up knowing how beautiful and extraordinary her mother was.”
I kissed the cold stone, a dark reminder that this was all I would ever have of her.
There would be no more warm body to hug, no more soft lips to kiss. I would never have her with me again.
She was gone.
And now it was up to me to preserve her memory for both Macy and me.
No matter what happened in life, I would never fail to keep her with me.
