The Dead Romantics

by Ashley Poston

crass

“Why don’t you believe in love anymore, Florence?” Because when you put your hand in the fire too many times, you learn that you only get burned.

All that we had left was dino-shaped mac and cheese. Perfect depression food, at least.

“I can murder him if you want,”

“Grind up the body. Host a barbecue. Feed the remains to your office. There, done.”

Because storybook love only existed for a lucky few—like my parents. They were the exception to the rule, not the rule itself. It was rare, and it was fleeting. Love was a high for a moment that left you hollow when it left, and you spent the rest of your life chasing that feeling. A false memory, too good to be true, and I’d been fooling myself for far too long, believing in Grand Romantic Gestures and Happily Ever Afters.

Some things you just couldn’t tell even the people you loved the most. Some things no one would ever understand. Could never understand.

“When the Dead Sing.

the heck?? this reminds me with where the crawdads sing

I missed that the most. I missed it so much, the closeness, the certainty that I mattered. And I wanted to matter again. To someone, to anyone. For a moment.

“Your grandma—my mother—told me once that the wind is just the breath of everyone who came before us. All the people who’ve passed on, all the ones who’ve taken a breath—”

“They’re still in the wind. And they’ll always be in the wind, singing. Until the wind is gone. Do you hear them?”

We had been best friends once, but that was a lifetime ago. I didn’t regret leaving—I couldn’t regret leaving. It was for my own sanity. But looking back on it, I could’ve handled it a little better. That I did regret. I could’ve not shut Alice out of my life. I could’ve visited once in a blue moon. I could’ve . . .

Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.

All I could think of was how quiet the inn was, and how my thoughts were so loud against it, and how in New York I never had to hear silence. I never had to think about Mairmont, or the people here, or why I left.

For ten years, I hopped from one apartment to the next, chasing after a love story that wasn’t mine, trying to force myself to be the exception instead of the rule, and over and over again all I found was heartbreak and loneliness, and never once did I see a murder of crows in a dead oak tree, or a ghost on my front steps, because I was like everyone else, normal and lost, and my dad was still alive.

I wanted to believe him. Wished I could. But I knew myself better than someone who had talked with me for thirty minutes and kissed me behind a hipster bar, and I knew exactly what I was—who I was.

A coward who ran away from the only home she ever knew. A gullible idiot who fell for guys who promised her the world. And a failure who couldn’t finish the one thing she was good at.

“You don’t have to do everything alone, Florence.” “I’ve got so much baggage, I’m never alone,” I replied jokingly, and she laughed. “You’re ridiculous. Love you.” “Love you more.”

I could do things on my own—I didn’t need to bother anyone else. Alice was up to her gills in funeral preparations and Carver had his own job and Mom—Mom couldn’t do everything. I wasn’t sure if my siblings could see it, but she was barely holding herself together. No, this was my job. I was the eldest. I could do this. Alone. I had for this long, anyway.

Hers I felt like I could at least try to fix. Mine? It was a hole in my chest filled with all of the things that made my grief so heavy, it was hard to breathe sometimes.

help. “They’ve already done a lot. A lot more than me. This is the least I can do, right?” Seaburn sighed. “You don’t have to do everything alone, love.”

I wondered what he regretted, what parts of his life he wished he’d done differently.

Imagine being thirteen and on the witness stand and having to say, ‘A ghost told me.’ It was . .

Rose never understood why I was so wrapped up in what Lee thought of my books, but didn’t you want someone you loved to respect what you wrote? Lee was supposed to be the closest person I had. He was supposed to tell me it was good, that it was worthy—and that I was worthy of that praise. But instead it came from a stranger I barely knew.

And I recognized that kind of smile, finally. The kind you didn’t really show to strangers. The kind you kept to yourself because the world had been shit, and your heart had been broken so many times by different people and places and stories. He had stories, too. The wedding ring on a chain around his neck. The way he fit his hands into his pockets to look as small as possible. The reason he loved romance.

Because loneliness was the kind of ghost that haunted you long after you were dead. It stood over your plot in the cemetery where a lone name sat carved in marble. It sat with your urn. It was the wind that carried your ashes when no one claimed your body.

“I guess if everyone found their big love, then the world wouldn’t be such a terrible place most of the time, eh?”

“Your father never wanted you to come back when you weren’t ready.” A sinking feeling burrowed into the pit of my stomach.

“No, we always catered to you,”

“We all’ve got ghosts, Florence. You just happen to be the only one wh...

Because he was someone very safely dead. Someone so very out of reach. And I was that fucked up.

New York was a great place to live if you had roots there. If you were part of it. But some people weren’t born for steel jungles and the fast-paced lifestyle and—let’s face it—the cost of living. I used to love that I blended in with the crowd, that I was another face among faces, another writer chasing their dreams in the neighborhood coffee shop. But the longer I lived there, the more gum littered the sidewalk and rust crept in.

“Okay, so: Here’s my problem. I haven’t been able to write for about a year now. I don’t see the point anymore. I used to believe in love, but I really don’t now. Every time I try to imagine it, I can only think about how mine ended.”

“One relationship doesn’t—”

“If it was one, Ben, I’d be lucky. Dad said I had a string of bad luck, but I don’t really think that anymore. Guys just . . . don’t want someone like me. Or ...

My eyebrows furrowed as I stared at the condensation on my glass, but all I could see were the times I’d been dumped, broken up with, left ou...

“Maybe I’m the p...

I tried not to linger too much on his forearms. He had a tattoo on the underside of his right arm, halfway up toward the elbow, though his arms were folded so I couldn’t see the whole thing. Though I really wouldn’t mind. Some people were shoulder people, some people were back people, some people were butt people— I, for all intents and purposes, was a forearm kind of girl.

He came over quietly and sat down on the floor in front of me, and for the first time—ever—he had to look up to meet my gaze, and he gave me something that I hadn’t really thought I wanted: his undivided attention.

I put up a barrier because I couldn’t face how he’d look at me if I told him it was real. I should’ve known better. I just became a story to him, too.”

“I thought it was what I deserved. I thought that’s what I got for . . .” “For having the audacity to trust someone you loved unconditionally?”

“You know, you being angry on my behalf is kinda sweet. I wish I’d met you sooner when you were alive.”

He returned the sad smile. “Me, too.”

I missed it. I missed talking about death like another step in the journey. Lee Marlow hated my humor. He thought talking about death was gross and immature.

“Fuck that son of a bitch for twisting every good memory you told him into some deranged Twilight Zone. We aren’t a gothic horror novel. We’re a love story.”

“There’s nothing like the sound of the sky rattling your bones, you know?”

“Makes you feel alive. Reminds you that there’s more to you than just skin and blood, but bones underneath. Stronger stuff. Just listen to that sky sing, buttercup.”

And he screamed again. In his voice there was aggravation, and heartache, and sadness, because he was a ghost, and he had left his life behind, and he had died in the prime of it—and I hadn’t even thought about what he must’ve been feeling. To be dead. To be ignored. Invisible.

I was the only one who could hear him screaming. But he didn’t do it for other people. He didn’t do it to be heard.

“I believe people. Even if it’s weird, even if it doesn’t make sense, I want to believe them. I want to see the good in them. I give my heart to everyone I meet and I put it in everything I do. And sometimes it hurts—often it hurts, actually . . .”