Page 45 of Every Bit As Perfect
Even if everyone down below forgot his name and refused to leave an empty chair at the table.
If they no longer spoke about him, moving on as if he wasn’t present in every childhood memory and every other thought, as if I didn’t wait for him around every corner, I would speak.
Even if only the heavens above would hear me.
The heavens would bear witness to my pain.
The leaves in the trees would shudder just as I did.
And the wind would carry it away, the weight of my sadness burdening no one.
“Hunter!”I thundered, my voice breaking.“I miss you.”
I missed his raucous laughter and his easy smile, his sneaky smile and his magnetic presence in every room, the way he made everything fun and never made me feel unworthy or unwelcome.
Fury at the unfairness of it all leant me strength.I opened my chest, spread my arms wide, and raised my face to the sky.“Hunter!”And his name turned into a scream that shredded my throat and sent me to my knees.
“Hunter,” I rasped.“Hunter.Hunter.Hunter.”Oh, God, the pain and pleasure of saying his name, a name everyone else avoided for fear of remembering too clearly all that we lost.“Hunter.”
The regret.The remorse.
The if only.
I braced my palms against the cold, solid rock, and my tears flowed freely.But they would never cleanse me of my grief.
“Hunter,” I sobbed raggedly.“I’m so sorry.”
I curled up on my side and hugged my legs to my chest, completely and utterly alone.
The one day out of the year I devoted entirely to him.The one day a year I didn’t hold it together.The one day I didn’t, couldn’t, pretend.
I lay there, as close to heaven as I could climb, and waited for the fatigue to catch up to me and urge me home.
My breaths came easier, slicing through the agony in my chest with every inhale.
I breathed deeply, the pressure in my chest, on my heart, alleviated.
A change in the atmosphere alerted me to his presence before I heard him.
Somehow, I knew it was him.How did he find me up here?How did he even know where to look?
I closed my eyes.
I was good at pretending.Maybe I could pretend him away.
Because I didn’t want to talk.
Or explain.
Or God forbid, listen as he explained it for me, thinking he could make it better with the same useless, ineffectual, condescending platitudes that served more to comfort the speaker than the griever.
He sat down behind me.
I curled tighter into my ball.
Then he did what no one else had.He pushed his arm under my head, laid his cheek on my hair, and curled his big body around mine, his other arm wrapped around my chest, his palm splayed over my heavy heart.
I jolted at the feel of him, warm and solid, at my back.
