One night, I saw Matthew in the graveyard. I had waited for him, actually. His hair was shorter, his clothes tattered and the colors muted like he was in some kind of old movie. He stood near the tree we’d meet at during his night shift, and faced the moon like he and her were talking about something heavy. I couldn’t keep myself from sitting at the window with his form standing a mere few hundred feet from me. Before my voice had reached his ears, before he turned to me with those gorgeous hazel eyes, my legs were carrying me in my pajamas at break-neck speed. My loose clothes billowed against the moonlit mist of the night as my feet pedaled on the soft soil outside my house. Down the hill that misty night, over the fence, and over the tombstones like they were just stones in a riverbed. Matthew looked at me with something familiar in his eyes and his arm reached for me.
Before his lips parted, my thumb found his bottom one and I drew close as if the words in my mouth could be tasted on his. I whispered to him, “Where have you been?” Matthew’s eyelids had fluttered as if the touch alone relieved him. My hand slid up into his chestnut curls smoothly and he hummed for a moment, distracted. “Matthew, I missed you. Where did you go?”
He had that faraway look in his eye, I felt it before I saw it in the dip of your brow. He blinked a few times, like he was trying to remember something but struggled. That mist curled up against him like a familiar feline, like he was its master. I felt Matthew’s jaw tick minutely before he answered Right here, where you left me. His hand slid over mine and his breath fanned into mine over the cool mist that curled up to meet us. He brought my fingers to his mouth to kiss as his eyes found mine again, Missed you, pretty girl. My pretty girl.
I smiled and let him continue his soft ministrations as I drew closer to him with a hum in my throat. You get more beautiful every time I see you, baby. He kissed my middle finger, up one side and down the other, letting his tongue peak out.
That hand on his mouth came to his throat without further thought, my thumb over his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Not true. I’ve been waiting for you.”
I know you have, That warm breath over my forehead fanned before he kissed me there. I know, Dear.
Something in my throat hurt terribly and though it was familiar I could not place it. Why do I know he’s lying? How do I know? I could not shake the two thoughts, that he cannot tell the truth, and yet he would never hurt me.
I looked up at him “You keep leaving…You left, Matthew.” Something in my mind curled around me like mist and I was insatiable, still with my hand at his throat, his arm at my waist. His mouth came to mine, hovering, breathing me in as if I were fragile.
I wanted him there, I wanted to be here more than anywhere else, and yet something in me begged for a breath. As if I was missing something. His hazel eyes greeted me with crinkles. Where is your mind now, love? Come back to me.
And at that, the breath was taken. My lips moved, and that pain in my throat gripped me like a scream, like a wraith. “You’re terrible. A wretch of a man. A boy, really.” A breath puffed out from me as I huffed, the aggravation coming suddenly. “You didn’t even say goodbye to me, you piece of shit.”
He pulled back a bit and stood before me, as beautiful as the day I first saw him. Moonlight in his brown hair, prettiest eyes in our small town, broad shoulders, and lean frame, and yet something in me hated the sight. Despised it. He blinked down at me with a furrowed brow, as if I were the one making no sense. That pale skin I used to mar with lipstick sang to me, mocked me. He shook his curly head. You don’t mean that.
“I do.” I say, and that thing in my throat was crawling up like it had legs. My voice is thick with something angry and pathetic. “You left me that night, and you never said goodbye.” There were tears almost immediately, and I resented each one as they sprang from me. “I loved you, Matthew. And you left me. Used me.”
Those hazel eyes, the ones I’d written poetry about and read to him while I lay with my head in his lap, crinkled again like some kind of broken record. You don’t mean that, baby. C’mon. His hand came to my face and held my face like it was his favorite fine china, like I was his best possession.
My hand on his throat felt solid skin, thrumming warm breath under my fingertips as I squeezed at his neck, my other hand over his heart. “Quit coming here and hurting my heart. Quit it. I hate you.”
His eyes watered with what crooked grin on his face, as if this was one of those nights in his bedroom. He took a step back but I followed him one foot after another until I had him at that old tree he loved. His fingers fought to pry me from him, but both my hands found their way to his windpipe. Those eyes seemed to plead as if I had a mercy left for him. As if he could bargain for another breath.
Tears ran down my face as I screamed against his struggle. He had slipped on a loose root and we both slid down, my muddy pajama pants straddling his waist. “You stay right there and die. Just die. Die!” I screamed at him as if his dead parents in that graveyard ought to hear the kind of son he’s become. I squeezed his neck and shoved him down, moonlight sifting through the leafless branches of the tree we lay under.
He gasped and grabbed at me, but I could not stop. “Why’d you leave me, huh? You said you liked me. I don’t understand, why don’t you like me anymore?!” I cried, my face hurting from the contorting it was doing, as if I was becoming someone else. “I hate you. I loved you, Matthew.”
My fingers started to hurt and my knuckles were getting sore, but I was still screaming like some kind of ghoul. I cursed his very being, cursed myself for loving him, the earth for letting me find him, the sun for shining on him the way it did, the moonlight for dancing on his freckles every night like he was some child of the night. My throat grew hoarse, my knees grew muddy, and my eyes were almost swollen shut, but still, I thrashed atop that mangled ghost like I could really kill him.
And when the sun came up and that mist flew away with the moon, I drooped with my head against that tree where our initials were carved, like some sad joke. I looked to my right and my left and saw the flowers that littered each tombstone. I cried and rose begrudgingly. This yearning, the interrogating I did, all for the ghost of someone no longer there. And I was infatuated with the episode. The reminiscing, the thrashing of that illusioned body on the muddy floor, I was terribly attached to the bad habit. But I trudged away and ripped wildflowers from the ground. My feet take me back to our tree, where I threw those same flowers like a begrudging peace offering, before stomping back home.
I had not known that was my last night there, that I’d have to grip the sink and insist to my reflection “I’m not staying in that yard. I’m not.” At the time, the sun grew mysteriously warmer, and the wind was crisper. When I went home to shower, my sister had saved me some of the peaches she picked. My best friend from school called me up and we grabbed a bite. I read a book with her and we cackled on the phone. I cleaned my room and had my friends over for sleepovers. I started falling in love with my body, even on days I didn’t feel it. I started praying more, even if it meant I’d scream at God. I swung my feet on the swings, and one day your hair cropped up behind the slides. That phantom pain threatened my throat and my feet almost found the ground mindlessly.
Almost.
But I don’t love you anymore. And that phantom pain, that craving to wrestle at night like Jacob did with God will bring me nothing but a deeper hole and no casket. So maybe I paused, but my legs swung at the sky again. I’ve picked enough flowers for you.