Communicating Vessels [COMPLETED]

Chapter 45

Sigrid: Thinking of you today. Call me if you need anything, I'm here for you. Love you.

Cedric: You're the strongest person I know. Courage. Love you.

Mom: Quisiéramos estar allí contigo. Mamá y Papá te aman mucho mucho. Besos.

It was raining. We were in the middle of spring in Southern California, and it was raining. Great.

I zipped up my rain jacket, stuffed my phone, keys, and wallet in my pockets, and I braved the outside world.

I arrived at my destination a good two hours later, after a detour by the florist. A bouquet of twenty-two black roses, as always.

The tree was the same as it always was. The bench was more worn than the year before, but in better condition than the year to come. It would keep getting more and more decrepit, year after year, until they decided it was time to retire it.

I tied the bouquet to the back of the bench, and I touched the golden plaque which bore his name and the name I had added under it with my key, years ago. Aaron Jo Paxton. I crossed myself. I considered myself an atheist but I was born and raised Catholic. That small gesture gave me a bit of solace, not because I believed in what it represented, but because it was a tradition I had grown into, it was my culture. And there's no better moment to go back to your roots than when you are in pain.

I sat on the bench, the wetness of its slats seeping into my clothes almost immediately. I should have brought a longer jacket, but none of my longer jackets would have held off the rain quite like that one.

I looked up at the sky. It was dark, gray, and cloudy, not one bit of blue sky peeking through. That awful weather was there to stay. It was still a long time before sunset, at least three hours, but I could tell the sky would not clear up by then, meaning I wouldn't be able to see the stars. As if I needed another reason to cry . . . I blinked and the tears started flowing. To the exterior eye, they might have looked like it was just the rain dripping down my cheeks. There was no mistaking the throbbing ache in my chest for anything else, though.

After a minute or two, I couldn't hold the sobs any longer. I gathered my knees to my chest, and I rested my forehead on them. Exactly four years before on that day, Josh had died, along with our unborn baby. There were days where grief was easier, just a dark shadow in a distant corner of my mind. But whatever I did, regardless of whom I asked to fuck me into oblivion, grief never disappeared. There had not been a single day since the accident when I had not thought of their deaths, and there never would be.

With the increasing amount of time I spent with Arthur, however, the moments where I felt debilitatingly bad had gotten rarer. It sometimes felt like Josh's memory was slowly fading away, only for him to eventually become an afterthought.

"No!" I cried out, and the few students that had braved the rain looked at me as if I were deranged. I gave them the finger and they looked away.

"Is that why it's raining today?" I asked the sky. "Are you punishing me for being with another man? Are you afraid I'll forget you?"

Just as I was saying that, a loud crack of thunder resonated. I had my answer.

"You've always been quite the odd one but speaking to the sky and expecting an answer is next-level crazy," a shrill, almost squeaky voice said from behind me.

That voice belonged to Sasha. Shorter than average, skinny, long silver hair, more piercings than you could count, and tattoos all over her body. She was wearing a tight black dress underneath a transparent rain jacket, and had foregone the heavy eye makeup for once, but she wore her signature dark lipstick. Usually burgundy or deep purple, that day it was jet black.