Hopelessly Falling [book 2]

Chapter Fourty-three

When we finally got there, none of us spoke when I parked and turned off the car. I focused on keeping my breathing steady as I simultaneously tried to keep my eyes from tearing up. Layla must have noticed this, because she reached out and put a hand on my arm. I looked up to see a tear already falling from her eyes, and a look in them that seemed to be saying 'it's okay'. I nodded and slowly opened my door.

Jake didn't walk with his usual bounce, and Layla's normally confident stature seemed to have completely shrunken in on itself. And me, well I looked the same as usual, but I knew that at any second a tear could fall from my eyes. And I hated that.

When we finally made it to where their graves were, we stopped a little bit away from them, all scared to get any closer. With deep breaths, I took both of their hands in mine and brought us the final 30-or-so yards to their shared headstone.

Scotty and Elizabeth Monroe.
Beloved parents.
Forever in our hearts.

My eyes officially started watering like crazy as I finally brought myself to read the sharp lettering, though I was still trying with all my might to hold myself together for Jake and Layla.

Layla took her hand out of mine as she knelt down next to the headstone. My lip quivered, but I fought to stop it. She gently reached out and placed a daisy and a sunflower neatly in front of the stone- their favorite flowers. Jake hugged my leg and buried his face into it as well, clearly not wanting to look anymore.

Layla spoke softly, and I couldn't quite hear what she was saying as I focused all my energy on keeping myself together. I looked up at the sky in efforts to keep my tears at bay, but then realized that that was probably closer to where they were, anyway. Not this stone.

When her crying started to get more intense, she stood back up from the ground and rushed into my arms. She shook as she cried into me, and I officially couldn't help the tears now falling down my face as I held her back tightly, both for her and myself.

The three of us stayed for a little while, and I tried to hide my crying as Jake talked to the slab of stone as if he was talking to the two of them. He caught them up on the events of his day today, as if they hadn't missed a day of the past 4 years. I doubted Jake even fully remembered them, since he had been so young. I wondered if he'd be able to identify their faces in a picture if asked. And that thought made me cry silently a little harder.

"I'm okay to leave now, if you guys wanted," Layla spoke after a long while of us remaining there. We had all been thinking it, she was just the only one currently brave enough to speak it.

"Can, um," my voice was hoarse, even though I hadn't been audibly crying. "Can you take Jake back to the car? I'll be there in a bit." I asked without meeting her gaze. I wouldn't have been able to.

"Of course. Take your time, Ash," she replied, her voice still as sad as it had been when we got here. I reached up and ruffled jakes hair as he passed in a last-effort attempt to make him feel a little less sad. But he didn't crack his usual smile, though.

Once they were far enough away to not see me, I sat down next to the headstone, and finally let myself cry.

I cried for a good few minutes before I could bring myself to talk.

"Hey guys," I tried out Jake's strategy of talking to them like they were here to see if it helped me at all.

"Been a while," my voice cracked, and I wiped my tears as they kept falling. "Sorry I haven't visited much. I was just scared, I guess," I told them.