I was stuck.

Of course, I wasn't really stuck, but it felt like I was. As I stood on the narrow path that was the entrance to the cemetery, it felt like my feet were cemented to the ground. It felt like a sick and twisted metaphor for purgatory, looking forward to the open gates just feet ahead of me. I couldn't move forward, I couldn't move backwards.

I was stuck.

I breathed through my nose, closing my eyes as I tried to find the strength to walk into the hollowed ground. I didn't want to go in there. I didn't want to look at Henry's gravestone, because if I looked at his gravestone, it meant I was looking at Henry's gravestone. 

It meant that he was dead and gone, and what's left of him was under the ground beneath my feet. I didn't want to picture him dead and gone and under my feet. I wanted to picture him alive, I wanted to picture him somewhere that was better than here. I wanted to picture him in heaven. I wanted to picture him flying through the clouds with that smile I missed so dearly on his face.

I didn't want to picture him in the ground.

The cemetery was empty, it was just me here. Well, just me and the hundreds of dead bodies below me. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, because the only time I had been in a cemetery before was when they lowered his casket into the ground. It was different then. Everything was sharp, like the blade of a hunting knife. The colours were sharp in my memories, like it had been filmed in high definition. But, the sharpest thing of all was the pain.

I gritted my teeth as I pushed forward, finally breaking free from the purgatory I had been trapped in for the last ten minutes. Though, I wasn't sure what I was moving into, I wasn't sure what fresh pain was awaiting me. I did it anyway, because somewhere deep inside me, I knew I had to.

I knew Henry was right, just like Cass was. I knew I had to move on, I knew I had to let go. It seemed like an impossible task, because I wasn't sure I could ever really let it all go. And, maybe a part of me was scared to let it all go- because if the guilt, and the pain and the grief isn't there anymore, what will fill the empty space?

I walked like my body was a metal detector and his headstone was the metal buried deep beneath the ground, like my muscles had memorized the very spot we had all gathered at close to a year ago. Had it really been a year?

How does a year just vanish?

My stomach fell as I saw his name. It was there, just like I knew it would be. My eyes traced the headstone, looking over it completely as if I needed to see each and every inch of it. It looked fresh, new compared to the aged stones beside it. Even though it was a grey day, and there was light raindrops falling all around me- the headstone still sparkled. The light grey rock it was made of was shining with black and silver speckles scattered on the surface, they caught the faint rays of sun that were poking through those grey clouds and made it glimmer ever so slightly.

His name hit me like a brick to the face, but even more painful was what was beneath his name.

Henry Douglas Howard
January 12, 2001 — September 24 2018
A loving son and friend.
There is beauty everywhere, remember to see it.

Like an ocean wave had crept down the beach, rushing over my body in a way I wasn't prepared for, I felt every emotion possible in the seconds it took me to read the writing.

Though, my eyes kept going back to the dash that separated the two dates. That dash, it was so small. It was a tiny detail, lost when compared to the importance of the other details. But to me, that dash was everything because it was everything. That dash was Henry's life, his entire life. His entire existence was that dash. His memories, his pain, his suffering, his joys, his triumphs. It all happened in that dash.

Me, us- Zane and Henry, our friendship was in that dash.

But- why did that dash have to be so short?

I pulled the air in through my nose, trying to settle my chest which was almost too full with emotions. It was the heartbreak I had been avoiding, I could feel it happening.

I wanted too push the pain away, I wanted to run in the opposite direction. I wanted to turn right around and walk back to my car. I wanted to, believe me, it was all that I wanted to do, but I knew that I couldn't do that.

I closed my eyes instead, my head bobbing in the air like I was trying to move through the grief. I knew I needed to feel the pain. My mind was a movie, like a montage of all the moments that Henry and I shared. I could see him. I could see him on the day we cut class and played video games instead. I could see his smile when he finally had his first kiss and he was telling me about it afterwards. I could see his laughter when O told us how he embarrassed himself in front of Cassidy for the first time.

"I love you Henry," I whispered into the air. "I love you and I'll always remember you. I'll miss you every day, but I'm letting you go now. I'm letting you fly in the way that you should be flying, free and untamed. I'll never forget you, brother. I'll never let your memory die."

I blinked the tears out of my eyes, opening them again and focusing back on his headstone. "And I'll see you again, someday. We'll meet again, and we'll laugh when we see each other. I'll tell you all about my life, everything that you missed."

"And..." I took a deep breath, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry your pain was too much. I'm so sorry that you couldn't fight it anymore. I'm sorry for not seeing you the way I should have seen you."

My words floated into the air like orange leaves blowing into the wind, breaking free from the tree they grew from at long last. I was met with only silence, for several minutes I listened to that silence. It held a sense of serenity, a calmness I had never before felt. Like an invisible white fog was blanketing me, telling me it was going to be okay.

But then the silence was broken, ever so slightly.

My head shot up, as if my solitude here was to be expected and it was now taken away from me. I canvassed my surroundings, looking for the cause of the small rustle I had just heard.

She wasn't close, she was far enough away that if it was anyone else I might not recognize her. But, it was Seren, so of course I recognized her. She stood in front of a large headstone, but this headstone was different than the rest. This headstone was in the shape of an Angel, a statue standing almost as tall as she was.

Seren's face was blank at she stared at it. She was barely moving, she was so still that she almost didn't look real. She looked to be as much as a statue as the one she was standing before. The drizzling rain was falling on her, wetting her hair but she didn't seem to notice.

Though, there was something different about her. I had never seen Seren cry, until now. Tears streamed down her face silently, like a calm waterfall that barely makes any noise. She wasn't trying to stop the tears, or wipe them away. She just let them fall.

I hesitated, wondering what I should do. I wondered if I should back away, and give her the privacy she clearly thought she had. I could walk up to her, I could. I could tell her that I knew how she felt. I could tell her my own pain, I could tell her that she wasn't alone.

But, it seemed I took too long to decide. Seren turned suddenly, not sparing a second glance to the grave that she came to see. I watched her as she walked through the cemetery, until she disappeared from my sight altogether.

I felt my eyes crinkle together, and though I felt wrong about doing so- I walked towards the Angel she had been standing in front of. Just like I had done to Henry's, I ran my eyes over the details left at the grave.

My stomach sank when I realized it was her mother. Her last name was on the grave, Garcia. Seren had never mentioned that her mom was dead, and none of the others had either. An empathic pain flowed through me this time, realizing that Seren was dealing with her own loss, and it was a kind of loss that would never lessen.

I looked back in the direction she walked in, as if I was hoping to be able to catch sight of her again. I wouldn't, of course, she was long gone.

Don't let her fall- Henry's words ripped through my mind again.

And like a piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, I realized.

It was her, wasn't it?

It was always going to be her.