When The Stars Align

chapter twenty | i'll follow you to the graveyard

Lysander hits the breaks, stopping in front of the gateway to the graveyard. I half expected Lysander to stop and get flowers of something. Roses and daises were Mom's favourites, and I know he knows. But he didn't stop at the three flower shops we passed by, just continued to ride towards his destination.

He locked his bike on the fence, then gestured to pass mine. I handed it to him, taking my helmet off. I looked around. There was something wrong about everything, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Something just felt... off. There was a shiver down my spine. I hoped I was wrong.

"Okay, this way," Lysander spoke his first words since leaving the house. He began to walk into the cemetery, and I followed closely behind him. I couldn't help but look at the headstones, reading the names and dates. The ones at the front were pretty recent. The headstones aged as we walked in deeper.

So many years of killing, but I never was around for the aftermath. The funeral service. The burial. I never was the expressions of the relatives of the one's I've killed, besides my own siblings from a distance. Hell, half the people I were told to kill, I didn't even know their names.

"Do you always come here alone?" I asked Lysander. "You never bring Tori here when you come?"

He shook his head. "She comes here on her own time, usually later in the day. We actually don't spend today together. I kind of... isolate myself, I guess. The only time someone accompaigned me maybe Aurora on the first anniversary, only because she couldn't fall back asleep and I didn't want to give Soph a hard time."

And then my brain started thinking."Hold up, you were eighteen when Mom and Dad died," I started. He nodded. "But, you had Aurora before their first anniversary... you were a dad at nineteen?"

He sighed, kicking a stone in front of him as he walked. "I said I was put in a bad situation after the death, right. Soph and I... we were close, but I've only been dating her for a year or so at the time."

I have the faint memory of her at Tori's wedding ceremony. She and Lysander talked a lot. Maybe that was just their teenage hormones already kicking in.

"I was in a bad mentality and she was the only person that was able to even talk to me." I note the sadness and pain in his eyes as he talks, remembering his past. "She told Tori she'd watch over me for a while, make sure I ate and took care of herself, you know?"

I had a feeling I knew where this story was going to head towards.

"One night, I found Dad's collection of alcohol." Yup, that's what I thought. "I sat right at the pantry door and opened up whatever I got my hands on and got totally wasted in the span of a couple hours. I just... I just didn't know what to do.

"Soph found me and instead of her convincing to make me stop, I convinced her to join me. Both of us ended up so fucking drunk and next thing you know we're all over each other and I'm dragging her into my bed."

He stops talking. I don't need to hear the rest to know what happened after.

Yet, he continues to fill in what happens next. "Tori and Soph's parents thought marriage was the best option. They were open to an abortion but Soph didn't want one. We got married a couple years after Aurora was born, when we were twenty-one. Soph moved in before then. It helped, honestly."

I bit my lip. "Are you happy with her?" Maybe it wasn't the right question to ask, but I was curious. He loved Sophia then, did he still love her now?

"Honestly, yeah. Definitely wasn't the path I expected to take, but hey, I didn't expect to become a Lord at eighteen, either. I knew that Tori wasn't going to be there for me all the time, and it felt kind of nice I had someone too, you know?"