Best Way Not to Get Your Heart Broken

Chapter Thirteen - The Visit

It was a Thursday the day Maka made Soul go to his brother's grave.

After he's admitted everything to her, she didn't let it end just there. As much as he hated to talk about his past he couldn't say no to talk about it with her. She was just so... comforting. She helped. Maka made it easy to talk about and release. But the thing was, the more he talked about it the more Maka could see how much it hurt him. How much it still impacted his everyday life. It was the reason he only had a small hand full of friends even though he was one of the kindest people she'd ever met. It made sense, she later learned he strived to be as kind as his brother once was, he said if there was something to try to be, it was that.

So Maka decided to drop the bomb when they were walking to a nearby shop because Soul was hungry and Maka forgot to shop. They haden't spoke of it today but that didn't stop her.

"Hey Soul," she began and Soul hummed in response. "Where is Wes now?"

"Oh, he was buried the North Side of the city. Like my folks would accept any different. We had a kind of crypt for our family, where all our ancestors and that are buried or remembered. Most just get their name written on the wall but Wes got the absolute privilege to be buried there since he's been taken oh so young," Soul snorted and shook his head. "I remember once when I was 6 my Nan died and she was cremated. I cried because I thought that was why she died, I thought they killed her. Wes had to take me away and calm me down. He explained what it meant and even told me that when he died he'd want to be cremated because he hated the sound of being buried under the ground."

Soul shook his head in annoyance and clenched his fists. "I fought my parents about it but they didn't listen, so he was buried there. I didn't even get to go to the funeral, my folks said I didn't have the right to since it was my fault he died."

He said it so casually but Maka could sense the hurt in his voice. The longing. That's what did it for her. She grabbed his arm and turned them in the opposite direction, looking for the bus stop.

"Where we going?" Soul asked in a bored voice as she dragged him over, he was pretty used to Maka's weird episodes.

"North Side," was all she said and she dragged them onto the bus. Soul's eyes widened as the door shut behind him. He was trapped.

"And why is that?" he asked, his voice wavering with fear. Maka met his gaze sternly.

"We're going to visit your brother."

And so here he was. In a crypt full of his dead family. Maka said she'd wait outside so he could make peace with his past alone. She said he had to do it alone. Now he understood because he did have to be on his own to get through this. He stood in the centre and looked down at the rock before him.

"Hello, brother," he murmured quietly as he read the markings on his grave but none of it went in but his name.

Wesley James Evans.

Soul sighed to himself and tilted his head upwards. "Can't believe I'm going to do this," he muttered a bit louder. "But I am. I'm going talk to you even though I know you can't hear me."

He kicked the floor slightly before smirking down at the grave. "I've been doing fine, brother 'cause I know that's what you'd worry about. It was shitty a first but I'm better now. I even think maybe I've found the piece that even Mum and Dad can't criticize." Soul laughed lightly and could almost hear Wes's good natured chuckle in his head.

"Can you believe they left you to rot in here?" he asked as he looked around at the markings all around him. "I told them you'd hate it but did they listen? Course not. Feel sorry for you brother, stuck with the rest of our snobby family for the rest of eternity."

Soul let his eyes cast back to the grave and felt a swell of sadness and guilt, usually he'd push them down but seeing his brothers grave there... Knowing he was right below his feet he couldn't hide his feelings any longer.

"I am so sorry, Wes," he whispered. "I know it was my fault and I know you would say it wasn't but it was. If I'd just calmed down, or just didn't push Dad or just been the kid they wanted." He ran a hand over his face before letting his fingers rest over his mouth as he looked down on the grave.

"They said you being 6 feet under would help us all," he told the grave scornfully. "Something about knowing you were close and being able to take comfort in being able to visit. Yeah, maybe it makes them feel better but they didn't know what you'd have wanted. No one knew you like I did. No one."

He paced slightly as he glared around the room at the stupid markings of the ancestors he couldn't care less about. They didn't have the right to be buried alongside he brother. None of his family did. He wasn't one of them, he just was good at pretending to be.

"They thought this would help, they think any symbolic thing about death will help but they're just stupid, childish idiots who didn't know what it felt like to lose someone they actually cared about." He ranted, his voice going louder with each word. "If they cared they would've thought about what you'd like to see if you saw your own funeral, but none of them cared. Mum and Dad loved the attention the death of their child gave them! Wes, it was sick."

"They didn't care!" Soul suddenly roared to the grave. Just like when he was a kid and he's unload to Wes as he sat on his bed and listen to him rant and roar about things, nodding along and taking it all in before offering advice. It was the same, but now he was talking to a stone, not his brother. "They didn't love you enough to know what the pain of losing you felt like!" he went on. "Every prayer or fucking crypt doesn't make you any less dead. All it does is mask what we're feeling, gives something to see they represents you when we miss you but guess what!? It's not you! It's just a fucking rock."

Soul breathed heavily as he stared at the stone before approaching it once again. Letting his fingers run over the cold rock that represented his brother. "I'm so sorry, brother." He murmured again. "But I tried. And I'll... I'll come to see you more now. Yeah, maybe this isn't what we wanted it to be like when I got older," he chuckled brokenly. "But it'll have to do. I'll come again soon, Wes. Real soon."

He wiped a tear that slipped from the corner of his eye as he ducked his head and made his way from the crypt, except there was people blocking the entrance.

Soul stopped. His mouth dropped open as the man before him dropped the bouquet of flowers in his hand to clutch the woman at his sides shoulder. They both stood staring at him with their mouths agape, looking from the grave to him. They'd heard everything he just said, the look on their faces said it. And they were the last people Soul ever wanted to see at a place such as this. They were the last people on the planet he would've wanted to hear what he had just said.

"Soul," his father said in awe as his mother let out a small cry.