Haven

.4.

It had been a bad day for me.

I had lost the most important game for my team and therefore my title as captain was removed.

I had immediately gone to the café to sit and think there alone.

Deep in thought I jolted back to reality when I saw movement in the graveyard.

It was the girl.

But something was different, wrong even. She seemed stronger yet fragile. At peace yet that sadness had not gone. Visible but not on this world.

Then I realized what seemed wrong. I could see right through her onto the grave she had always sat at.

With a smile directed solely at me her image began to fade into nothing.

Another movement to the right of her caught my interest. It was an old man with a shovel wearily walking towards the grave adorned with hundreds of roses.

Slowly, he began to test the ground next to the grave and then started to dig.

Paralyzed I watched him dig deeper into the ground until you could only see the dirt being thrown up.

A drop fell onto my nose. It was rain.

I had sat there so long that I hadn't noticed the change in weather or the time.

Hurriedly I zipped my coat up and made moves to leave. With one last glance at the digging man I left.

***
When I arrived at home I immediately saw the rose on the doorstep. A black rose to be exact.

Dropping my belongings to the ground I sprinted the whole way back to the graveyard.

When I arrived, out of breath and flushed, the grave had been completed.

Side by side the graves sat and in front of them the boy.

He hadn't noticed me and when he had finished mourning he got up and left, leaving me alone with the gravestones.

Slowly I walked up to them and collapsed. Lying on the fresh grave was a picture of her.

Realization struck me, it really was her. She was dead.

Unable to get up I slowly put the rose onto her grave.

I sat there and mourned. She had been my haven and had not even known me, had never had the chance to know me.

Silently, I made my way back home.