This Present Darkness

EIGHT

The streets remained deserted. Not a soul in sight. The town was small, and Chad had explored all avenues in less than forty-five minutes. His final search led him to the far edge of town. He'd been avoiding this area—had avoided it for a year.

With a knot in his gut and pain in his heart, Chad approached the short iron fence that followed the perimeter of the cemetery. His hand rested tentatively on the gate that he hadn't ventured through since the day he'd lain Linus to rest. The ache inside him intensified as he remembered that day; standing alone that icy November morning, watching as the love of his life was lowered into the freezing earth. No one stood with him. No one held his hand, offered comfort or prayers. His worst nightmare come to life, and even God had forced him to face it alone.

Chad opened the gate. He hardly felt the freezing iron bars beneath his numbing hands. Each step crunched frozen grass as he walked over the small rise, then paused when he saw someone sitting on a stone bench, head down. Linus. Chad approached and stood before him. "What're you doing here?" he asked quietly.

Linus looked up, the anguish in his blue eyes swimming with his tears. "Waiting for you."

"How did you know I would come here?"

A faint, sad smile crossed his face. "Because I'm here."

Chad licked his cold, dry lips and lowered his eyes. "You've been here for a year," he whispered. "And I've never come to visit."

"Why haven't you?"

"Because...I didn't want to see."

"See what?"

Chad stared at him, his pain pulsing through him. "I didn't want to see your name etched in stone." His vision blurred. "Once something is written in stone...it's forever. I've never looked at your headstone. I didn't stay while it was placed above your grave." He trembled. "I'd already lost you, Linus. I couldn't stand there and look at your name written out in cold stone. The finality of it was too much."

"You need to look at it," Linus murmured. He reached out and took Chad's hand. "We could look at it together. I'll be right here with you."

Chad stepped back, withdrawing from Linus' grasp. "No." His brow pinched, and he shook his head. "I think...I think there's a part of me that believes you're still with me. That you're somehow still here. Maybe that's why I'm seeing you like this. But if I look at your name on that gravestone..." His hand covered his mouth and tears ran down his face. "...I might lose that belief, and you'll really be gone...forever."

Linus stood up and wrapped his arms around Chad's neck. "You can't live like this, Chad," he whispered. "You have to move on, baby." He held him tighter. "You have to let go of the anger and bitterness." He drew back, and his face was wet. "Before it's too late."

"Move on to what?" Chad choked on a sob. "We had our whole lives to live, Linus. We had dreams to make come true—together." His lips pressed tight, and chin trembled. "We...we were going to grow old together...and die together...in each other's arms." He dropped the 9-iron on the ground and pulled Linus deep into his arms, his body shaking with sobs. "We promised...we wouldn't leave each other behind. And they destroyed it all. They took you away from me, tore us apart." He crushed Linus against him, crying harder. "Why didn't you take me with you? Why did you let go?"

"Oh, baby," Linus whispered and gently stroked his hair, lips pressed against his ear.

Voices drifted up over the rise, low and undecipherable. Chad pulled back from Linus and cleared his throat. He wiped his face and picked up the golf club, the hardness returning to his eyes as he stared at the small hill of frosted grass, and waited.