Loads of Time
Loads of Time
I
I ducked beneath the bough of pines I’d hidden myself away in.
I stood silently as the rain slipped from the needles and ran down my face and hair, soaking through my clothes.
I could see it from here. I knew exactly which one it was.
Sometimes when I was feeling particularly brave, I’d edge a little closer.
But not today.
ll
The white marble was already graying, the bleached stone mottled with dirt and sap, the smooth edges slightly weathered from the harsh winds and rain.
On the rare day when the sun was shining, and the birds were singing, this place could be peaceful; enchanting even.
On those days, the quiet would lull over me, and I’d remember the good times.
But it never lasted long; the good times were quick and fleeting, and before I knew it, I’d come back to where I was.
Where he was.
lll
Then the rains would start, the birds would nestle silently into their nests, and the darkness would settle in, making this a place of secrets.
Secrets I’d never, in all my eternity here, ever find the key to.
I read the stones closest to me; the mother who’d gone before her time. The grandfather who outlived all three of his children and died at 97.
All those years on earth and no one to remember them.
My eyes jumped to the rows ahead, to his again.
His smile saved my life, once upon a time.
lV
Though I didn’t need to anymore, I forced a lungful of air in.
The moist scent of the rain was familiar and clean.
Did you know you’re sort of beautiful?
You hit your head pretty hard, didn’t you?
I gasped, rousing myself from my wandering thoughts.
I had to keep my guard up here, or he’d sneak up on me from behind.
V
Before I could analyze it or talk myself out of it, I took a few steps forward.
It was the most progress I’d made in years.
In the beginning, I couldn’t even come beyond the front gates, with the innocent looking stone pathway, leading back here, to…
Don’t get mad at me for hanging around, okay? Because I’m not giving up. I’ve got loads of time.
Loads of time.
Loads of time.
Vl
I heard a cry ring out and echo through the stones and statues, and a bird screeched and flew from the trees behind me.
I stumbled forward, blindly, before I caught myself and stopped abruptly.
I quickly turned and looked behind me, half expecting to see him, laughing and nudging me onward.
But there was nothing.
Vll
How had it all gone so wrong?
I should have been at her gravesite. But she’d been here with us so briefly, I’d scarcely known her.
I felt like a monster, admitting that his life had affected me more than hers.
I’d let her go a long time ago.
Vlll
There were no legal records confirming her, so we’d buried her in a plot behind the property.
The miracle of her conception, and her rapid growth - who would have guessed that it would continue at a rate that would kill her within five years time?
Something went wrong.
She reached twenty human years by the age of three, and instead of stopping, like some Benjamin Button nightmare, she kept going at warp speed.
By five and a half, she was like a withered old woman.
Her heart gave out before she’d reached the age of six.
lX
He had stayed with her through the whole thing, being whatever it was she needed.
A brother, a mentor, a friend and a caretaker.
Then he left. Quietly slipping away without telling anyone.
They said he stopped phasing, and left the supernatural world behind.
But he was home now.
X
Without the phasing, Alice could keep updates on him, and on the rare occasion she’d get a glimpse of him in her visions, she’d pull me aside and tell me in secret.
And so this is where I’ve been coming for the past fifteen years. Never quite courageous enough to face him head-on.
I stared at the marble cross until the edges wavered and raindrops weighed my lashes down.
Until my heart stops beating.
Maybe even then.
Xl
Before I could stop myself, I took another step. And then another. I reached out, close enough to touch it.
Feeling the damp chill surrounding the headstone, my hand drew back at the last second, as if the granite were hot coals.
As if his own heat were seeping through the cold marble.
I forced my eyes to look at the writing.
Jacob Bl -
Xll
My body turned and ran, a dizzying blur to the human eye.
I flew soundlessly and deftly through the woods, ducking among the cedar and the pine.
I leaped across the creek, putting distance between him and myself.
Xlll
I approached the house slowly.
I knew they know where I go, and as long as I kept the ghosts in the graveyard and didn’t bring them home with me, no one questioned my nocturnal jaunts.
I’d been so close. Finally.
It’s alright, I reassured myself. Maybe next time.
Xlll
I would go back the next day, and the day after that.
I knew this as surely as I knew I would live forever.
And someday, I would face my friend, and let him go.
But not this day.
After all…
I had loads of time.
Loads of time.
Loads of time.