Angels Wear Blue Jumpsuits

Part 5

I was too scared to go in there.

Not because cemeteries creep me out.

But because you'd realize I had followed you in secret for an hour.

And I didn't want to creep you out.

Though now I couldn't help but wonder if the drug-related rumours revolving around you were true. The local cemetery was a known pick-up spot for weed. I began to think about your car– you didn't have an afterschool job, so maybe you sold your vehicle to fund your drug habit. Or the cops had caught you driving while high and you lost your licence. These were some of the many scenarios I had floating around my head– no wonder my father once told me to be a police detective. He didn't realize it was just an over-active imagination that does me more harm than good.

Weeks passed, and we were nearing the end of the school year. I followed you a few more times after school because you always headed in the direction of my house, anyway. But you kept going past it to the cemetery. Your attendance worsened, as did the redness of your eyes. When exams started, I was shocked to see you having to re-sit most of them. You, the 'over-achiever'- lacking? I'd had enough of theorizing. I needed facts.

The next time I followed you to the cemetery, I kept going, ducking behind trees and bushes every time you took a turn. Though at a junction, you took a left instead of a right and now my theory about you taking drugs made no sense. To the right was the older section of the cemetery, people dead for a few hundred years whom no one ever visited– also where the drug dealers hung out. To the left, where you were heading, were the more recent gravesites.

I watched you slow before a row of tombstones and stopped at one. From behind a tree, I saw you sit before it and bow your head. I took a wide circle around you to keep well out of your sight before I began approaching you from behind. The tombstone you sat before was massive with large writing that I could thankfully read from a distance. There was a woman's name upon it with your surname, died not quite two months prior, and at the very bottom of the tombstone I caught your name– 'Beloved Mother to Jay.'

The tears were instant, as was the harsh whimper that left my throat and revealed me to you. Spinning to the noise, you saw me and I saw you– your eyes still red, but with tears.

"Isla-"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

But I realized that you indirectly had– that day you asked about the death of my father and how I handled it.

You turn to face the tombstone again. "I just... didn't want to bother anyone."

"Bother anyone?!" I raise my voice and think to myself that even though you're one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, you sure are stupid. "How is grieving your mother bothering people?"

You shrug those wide shoulders that now look so much smaller from being hunched. I stand next to you and you begin to elaborate.

"People rely on me," you say softly, "I'm Class President, I run an afterschool club, not to mention all the other duties I unofficially do..."

"None of that's important, Jay."

"It's important to her," you say with a weakening voice and stare a hole through your mother's name on the tombstone. "She wouldn't want me to drop everything and cry over her. Even though I have been, anyway..."

I take a deep breath and sit beside you, reading the tombstone over and over until I notice something we have in common.

"You were an only child too?"

You nod. "My parents were lucky to have me. They struggled to conceive for years until I came along."

I want to tell you about my unique creation but felt it would've been in bad taste. Instead, I shuffle closer and ask: "How did she die?"