Annette P.O.V.
If there was one place I thought I would never be spending a Friday night, it would be a cemetery. But yet, here I am.
Dusk had just began to fall, casting shadows across every tree and headstone. Fireflies were beginning their evening dance between the gravestones and the crickets acted as the background chorus. It’s bleak and a bit overgrown, vines wrapping around the headstones like a vice; almost suffocating them.
The cemetery lay enclosed by wrought iron gates and stretched on for almost ten acres. The gates blocked off the line of trees and shrub that lay just beyond the cemetery, but that didn’t stop them from twisting around the bars to take over the burial ground.
Graveyards had always given me the creeps and this one especially. It is the only one in our small town and almost every family lineage had their own plot of land to bury anyone and everyone sharing their blood. They could even bury their dog here if they so desired. Which, I am sure these whack jobs did.
Tanner and I were tucked in the back corner of the cemetery, a few yards away from his plot and right in front of mine. Tanner was carrying a picnic basket and a blanket and was waiting for me to choose where we sat.
“This is your idea of a date? A picnic in a creepy graveyard?” I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but this was something I thought only happened in those weird vampire movies.
“Well, I was going to surprise you, but it looks like you are one scary noise away from high-tailing it out of here,” Tanner laughs and holds up his hands defensively, “The film club is having a showing here of, “Creature of the Black Lagoon” and I heard it was your favorite movie.”
Tanner flashes his award winning smile and I feel my stomach knot. This was actually too cheesy and sweet to handle. I’m shocked by the gesture and extremely flattered by how attentive he is. I return his smile warmly and he gestures between the two plots again.
My blood runs cold as I glance at the lone headstone in my freshly mown plot. I’m ashamed that I haven’t visited his grave once since I have been back and even though just looking at it makes me nauseous, I begin to lead the way over.
I grab the blanket from Tanner and lay the soft material down next to the grave. Tanner doesn’t say a word once he reads the headstone; he doesn’t even look surprised, but it’s not like Charlie’s death is a secret in this town. I sit down first, my fingers tracing the polished marble as I read over the engraved words.
Charlie Andrew Simmons
Loving son, brother, and friend
04-14-1993 – 11-17-2011
“Remember me as you pass by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now you soon must be, prepare for death and follow me.”
My eyes sting as I read the words set in stone and my chest tightens in the incessant guilt that follows me. This is my first time seeing the headstone; it was still being made by the time I went to New York.
“That’s pretty morbid.” Tanner says lightly, trying to break the ice. I snort at that and nod my head.
“Charlie would’ve hated it. But, my mom insisted. And there was no way she would have listened to what I had to say about what to put on his gravestone.” She was so adamant about that line, even when I tried to tell her that Charlie would hate that bleak statement. She, of course shut me down.
“Why wouldn’t she listen to you?” I could tell Tanner was treading lightly, even though it was obvious that he knew the real story. I glanced up at him; the night casting shadows across his face, making him look more chiseled and handsome than ever. I patted the empty seat next to me in welcome, which Tanner took graciously.
YOU ARE READING
Yin & Yang
Romance*Trailer on the side* Annette and Adam have always been close; first as friends, then as lovers. But growing up means growing apart and they find themselves hanging on by a thread. That thread is severely snapped by one mistake and by one phone call...
