infinite [ under construction ]

i. kings and queens | part one

" don't act like it's a bad thing to fall in love ... with me. "

-- Not Such A Bad Thing // Justin Timberlake

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The icy December wind whipped almost painfully at my already chilled face and other exposed bits of skin, making me shiver sporadically; but that was okay. I didn't have to move just yet.

"Hey, Mommy," I said quietly, kneeling next to her. "How you been?"

She didn't answer.

Smiling bravely, I forged on. "I -- I know I haven't been by in a few weeks to see you. Um ... work's been kinda tough on me, you know, and college classes aren't helping at all, not even considering Daddy's bills. Cheers to the classic American stress load, huh?" I chuckled somberly. Mommy had always liked my sense of humor.

I swallowed hard, feeling the familiar lump of tears swell in my throat. "Mommy?" I asked softly, wishing she would answer me.

But she didn't.

"Mommy, I'm so, so sorry," I whispered, choking up now. "I should have seen the signs. They were all right there, and I was so blind ... Mommy, please come back!" I dropped my head as I pounded my clenched, nearly-blue-from-cold fist onto the dusty-snow covered grave. "Please," I gasped, my body beginning to shake with my sobs and the cold. "Please, Mommy, I miss you so much ... I need to tell you how sorry I am ... please, please say something!"

But she said nothing.

She never did.

The three stemmed roses I'd brought for the grave snapped in my trembling fist, the stems brittle enough now with the cold to be blown away in the wind.

Finally, when my freezing tears had too been swept off my face by my old maroon coat, I placed what was left of the flowers on the grave. "Merry Christmas, Mommy," I said softly, tears still brimming in my eyes. "I love you. And I am so, so sorry." I reached out and touched the gravestone softly, ignoring the bite of the icy slab as I traced her name on it as reverently as I could: Diana Ruth King.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered again, and touched my forehead to the stone, resting my weight on it and simply remaining still.

I don't know how long I was there, but one minute I was wallowing in nostalgia and regret, the next I was being shaken ... awake? Had I fallen asleep?

"...ello? Hello! Lady? Lady, are you okay? Are you taking a nap in the scary graveyard?"

I blinked my eyes open, which turned out to be harder than I'd originally thought -- my eyes had felt frozen shut. I supposed I really was more tired than I had originally expected. But who was calling me?

"Lady? Are you dead?" Definitely a little girl's voice. I looked up into the face of the cutest little girl I had ever seen: long blonde pigtails running down to about mid-chest length, a big light green furry coat with matching muffler, boots, mittens, and scarf; cheerful blue eyes, light dusting of freckles, and the cutest little gap-toothed smile I'd ever seen. She stood maybe two and a half feet tall, making her just about as tall as I was as I knelt on the cold ground.

"Oh, good! You're not dead!" The little girl stepped a little closer to me. "Are you okay, lady? It's very cold out here ... I don't think you should be sleeping here. A ghost could get you, you know," she told me somberly, and I had to fight a little smile. "In graveyards there are tons of scary things."

I nodded silently, looking down at the ground. Like I didn't know that. The scariest things in a graveyard weren't the notion of ghosts, or the graves themselves. No, it was the memories trapped forever six feet underground, the memories you couldn't ever dig up again without hurting yourself so badly it could even wake you up at night --