Beautiful Graves

by L.J. Shen

The thing about tragedies is, you can never outrun the Big Alone. At some point, it catches up with you. In the middle of the night. When you’re taking a hasty shower. When you roll in bed and the linen is pressed and smooth where your lover should be. The big moments in your life are always experienced in solitude.

It’s two in the morning and he thinks he is going to jump. Maybe jumping is all that’s left to do. And is it pathetic that a part of him doesn’t want to jump because he is afraid of what his boss would say when he doesn’t show up at work tomorrow? But that’s exactly the problem. The reason why he is here, on this roof, in the first place. He worked so hard making a living, he forgot to live. Now this cliché that you can find on a cheap mug at a dollar store has brought him to the point of suicide. He had his chance and he blew it. He should’ve run after her faster. And when he almost reached her, he should have yanked the back of her shirt without caring what it’d look like. He should have told her she was perfect. But he didn’t, so now he needs to jump. Jump . . . or do something else. Even more ambitious. Pack a bag and go to New Orleans. To look for her.

This cat is a real piece of work. He needs Will sell principles and all future plans for a snack embedded on his collar.

She is a mortuary makeup artist. She works for Saint Mary’s Funeral Home. I once asked her what made her choose this line of work. I needed to know if she had a Cousin Shauna story that had turned her life upside down too. But she just shrugged and said, Nothing really happened. Originally, I wanted to go to beauty school. Then my mom told me she knows a cosmetologist and that she makes good money, works few hours, and is basically helping people and making a change. This was exactly what I wanted for myself. Not many people are drawn to this profession, but someone’s gotta do it. It’s an honor to prepare people for their last journey. Make sure the last time their loved ones see them, they don’t see the horrors they’ve been through.

“I can’t do this anymore, Joe. I can’t pretend that I’m your friend. It hurts too much. I like you.” I love you. “And I know we can’t be together. I respect that. Honestly, I don’t even know if it’s right for us. To be a couple after everything that went down. But I know if I keep in touch, it’s going to keep hurting, and I will never get over you. I will never move on. I will never have a husband, and children, and a white picket fence, and an ever after. Right now, you hold my happiness in your hand. I have to turn my back on this happiness and find another.”

“Because . . .” “Because?” “Oh, fuck it.” He tosses his arms in the air. “Because I’m in love with you, Ever Lawson. I don’t like you. I love you. Never stopped loving you. Not for one nanosecond.”

“You think I enjoy being your friend?” he spits out. “It’s torture! But I don’t know what else to do. You’re not ready for a relationship, and even if you were, I have no idea what something like that might look like. You don’t even know what state you want to live in, for fuck’s sake. You haven’t even removed the goddamn engagement ring he gave you. Every time I see it, I’m reminded of your choice. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t me.”

But see, forgiving people who hurt us is not about those people at all. It is about choosing to move on with our lives. Letting go of the grudges. Healing without depending on someone else’s journey.

“The past two decades have been a crazy ride from start to finish. A lot has happened. But one thing stayed through it all. It made it possible, even when things seemed impossible. And that thing is called hope. Hope made me realize something important. The one thing that makes a person rich is not their money, or their talent, or even their connections. It is their hope. Where there is hope, there is life. And where there is life, anything is possible. I owe my hope to one special person. She is here today, and I have a feeling she’ll be here for a very long time. Which is good, because no one knows what tomorrow will bring. All I know is that tomorrow, life is going to change. Not only for me. For Ever.”