For Better or Hearse

by Ava Hunter

After discovering she had a talent for crying on cue, she started her own business. She became a professional funeral mourner. Then, after her botched relationship with Jakob, she expanded into professional wedding objector. A profession she abandoned three years ago.

“I don’t want to be a main character. I want to be that statue in the corner of the room that sometimes gets mistaken for a ghost and scares the shit out of people.”

If there’s one thing her ex taught her, it’s that love is a kind of death.

She was the junky thing found in the bottom of a drawer. And that was before her diagnosis. After? Friends didn’t get it. They dropped off, quit calling. Either thought she was weird or got weird about it themselves. Ash learned then that when things got hard, people who love her will let go. So it’s better if she does it first.

She lost friends because she is a diabetic. That is a little extreme.

She doesn’t love Jakob anymore. She’s haunted by him. Because isn’t that what past relationships are? Ghost after ghost after ghost? And what do ghosts do? They haunt. They linger. They freak the fuck out of people when they least expect it.

That’s what love is. An apparition. It exists, until it doesn’t.

“Take your fucking stick and keep moving unless you want it up your ass,” Nathaniel snaps, stepping in front of her to block her from view. “Fuck you, dude.” With that, the guy storms off. Ash looks up at him, brow cocked. “Impressive. Violence before lunch.”

Violence before lunch...... i need to remember that line.

Head bowed, face furrowed in concentration, he ties her laces.

finally. her shoes are tied.

“You know,” Ash muses. “Love and death are so similar. The beginning. The end. It’s all a mystery. An unknown. Both are always on our minds. We don’t control the ride, the ride controls us. And no matter how hard we prepare, no matter how much we think we’ve got this, we can’t escape. Love. Or death.”

What has this girl survived? That’s what he wants to know. Why does Hawaii make her flinch? And goddamn does that lipstick ever come off?

Ash grabs the strap of his golf bag before he can walk away. Yanks it backward so sharply he almost lands on his ass. He catches himself. Spins. She pulls him against her. In her eyes, fire. “Kill you later.”

Expression thoughtful, Augustus settles back into the seat. “One thing I’ve learned in this life, Nathaniel, is that if we’re lucky, we get one shot. One death. One life. One good love. I only had ten years with Rosalea. But the one thing I’m glad for…” Augustus tilts his head back, absorbs the warmth of the late afternoon sun. “I’m glad I didn’t hold back my feelings.”

Even the act of brushing their teeth is foreplay.

Brushing your teeth is not sexy.....

Augustus casts her a wry look. “My dear, in every phone call, you are a topic. How’s Ash? Is Ash planning to maim someone today? He speaks about you so often, I’m afraid he is, what they called back in my day, twitterpated.”

“Grief and love coexist,” he says, resting his massive hand on Tessie’s belly. His rugged face creases with pain. “You can’t have one without the other. You have to take the good with the bad. And when you do, you’ll find the bad doesn’t matter as much as the good.”