The Funeral

The sun barely peaked over the horizon when they left. The last car slowly drove away taking the last of the teary-eyed with it. I stood and walked to where they had been standing and crying just moments before. I had waited for them to leave before I dared approach, until then I had stayed far enough away to not be recognised. I stopped and stood facing the stone for a few minutes, my eyes slowly tracing the letters of the name engraved upon it.

A single tear formed in the corner of my eye as I whispered her name. I stood and waited for the tear to complete its journey, finally crashing to the earth and then wiped the wet from my eye with the sleeve of my jacket.

A soft voice behind me broke the silence, “I knew you would come”.

I would know that voice anywhere. It was the voice that once made my heart jump, the voice that once whispered “I love you” into my ear, the voice that broke my heart.

I dared not turn to face her; I stood staring at the elegantly carved letters on her gravestone. “I had to. Nobody saw me, you needn’t worry.”

She laughed in the soft, genuine way she used to at my lame jokes, “I think it’s a bit late to worry.”

I said nothing, I had planned to say many things, but now I was here and actually had the chance they evaded me.

She broke the silence, “So, why did you come?”

Tears started to form again, and I choked out the words, “I love you.”

Quiet sobbing sounds from behind me, forced me to turn to face her. Her skin was pale, and her lips slightly blue, but she was still beautiful. I stepped towards her and wiped an icy cold tear from her cold lifeless cheek.

She looked up at me and only then did I realise that her once sparkling blue-green eyes were now a dull grey. “You hurt me”, she snarled through her still perfect white teeth. She stepped backwards, her soulless eyes staring at me through a veil of tears.

“I never stopped loving you”, it was not an excuse - I had none. It was what I had wanted to tell her for the last few months. The months spent waiting for it to be ‘the right time’, the months before the accident that ended my dreams of our life together.

“I forgive you”, she spoke softly again and she stepped towards me and into my arms. She looked up at me and I looked down at her, moving towards her dry, blue lips. I kissed her, and every moment I had spent with her rushed through me: holding hands on a winter’s day; picnics by the river; making love in front of the fire. Those feelings, every experience of my life of being in love and being loved channelled through our lips, into her and out of me forever. She pulled her lips away from mine, and smiled.

I fell to my knees and coughed a dry cough. I felt cold. A second cough brought up; blood splattered onto my pale white hands. Then there was pain and then … nothing.

Later we walked hand in hand down the path. I looked into her sparkling blue-green eyes. Her perfect deep red lips smiled, “I love you”.

“I love you too.”