FicWad

It didn't matter what I did.

Why I thought it would, I'm not sure, but there was a part of me that couldn't stop trying.

I'd bribed, begged, pleaded, and threatened, but nothing worked.

Nothing had brought him back, and I knew nothing would.

I can't lie about him, though. Even in my mind's eye, I can clearly see the bullets shower threw him like he wasn't the strong man I had known before. He'd done so many unspeakable things, but I thought I could save him.

I'd tried so hard to, because I'd believed he'd needed me, needed me more than anyone else in the same way I had needed him. If he did then, I had thought so long ago, that was all I would ever need.

I'd realized too late that he didn't.

I was lost for so long after. The hurt had been unbearably much, and for awhile I had slipped past human comfort under the covers of a quiet insanity.

I'd awoken to a world that was much the same as the one I'd tried to run away from. Through that single awakening, I'd learned that I alone couldn't facilitate the change that would make it less the way it was and more the way I wanted it.

The memories from before bombarded me at the moment. Every last one of them had a story to tell and they didn't recede until I knew them all by heart.

I silently asked my past self to forgive the person I was now, to let me shed one burden and walk just a little straighter.

The first place I went to was his grave.

I'd taken my camera and had bought flowers for propriety's sake, but I don't think he'd have liked them with their prominent presence and brightly articulated petals.

I hope that's not why I'd chosen that particular bouquet.

Then, I was there.

It was unadorned and simple. His name, and the few, scant years he'd been on this earth etched forever on a flat stone beneath an old oak tree.

I carefully laid the flowers down and knelt before a past I hadn't let go of.

I wondered if he was there, watching me with half-closed eyes and waiting for me to speak some contrived speech that I had practiced many times before.

I wondered if he was the one whispering, "Be yourself."

That was a greater comfort than I had expected, and the feeling brought tears to my eyes.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't-...couldn't-... I'm sorry that I thought I could try."
He was there. I felt him right there beside me.

I felt him brush his fingers across my hair, his hand my cheek. I thought I could hear him say it was all alright.

I stood then and looked around dazedly, but he was gone.

All I saw was the oak tree reigning benevolently above me.

I pulled the camera from my coat pocket and snapped a quick shot.

At this moment, this second of time...

I let go.