Haven

.5.

Every day I would go to her grave and sit there for hours on end and simply stare at her grave, thinking of would-be's that would never happen.

One day as I was making my way toward the graveyard, a black rose in my right hand, I felt eyes on me.

It was a group of girls just sitting there, watching me go by and into the graveyard.

I dismissed them and continued my daily ritual of sitting there, placing the rose on the stone and staring at the grave.

From then on the girls were always there, never venturing out of the café, just sitting there, watching me.

***

She had been watching him. It had gone on for months on end now but she did not get tired of it.

She wondered who the person was he was visiting. Never once did she herself go to the graveyard. She always stayed in the haven of the café.

From one day to the other he had disappeared. No longer were her friends and herself able to watch him for he was not there.

They had grown bored of sitting at that little café in the middle of nowhere and went off to their usual activities.

Everyone but her, she stayed and waited.

There had been something about him, she thought, something haunting yet luring her towards him.

She waited and waited, slowly losing all her friends and social life.

Her family didn't notice the change, they never noticed anything nowadays.

One day she saw an old man walking towards the two graves standing there.

She thought she saw the flickering silhouette of someone standing there but dismissed it.

The man tested the ground and began digging.

A boy her age passed the restaurant and stared her straight in the eyes.

It had probably been the bad lighting but she thought that there had been some sort of halo around his head, illuminating his handsome features.

When the café started to close down, she got up and left.

***

Once at home, there, lying on her balcony lay a black rose, identical to the one the boy had always carried.

The next day she went to the café, the rose in her bag as a reminder, she saw that the grave had been finished.

Slowly she made up her mind and ventured inside of the cemetery for the first time.

A picture lay on the fresh soil in front of the recently added headstone. It was him, the boy she had wstched for months, smiling at the camera.

She collapsed in front of the grave and silent tears overcame her body.

Gently she placed the rose next to the picture and sat there, sobs racking her body.

She had always felt at ease when seeing him and now, that lull of security had been torn away.

She came back to the grave the next day, a new black rose in her hands and stayed there, contemplating her life and unrealistic situations that would never occur.

***

At some point, she felt eyes on her back and turned around.

It was a group of boys, all staring at her intently.

One in particular was analysing her features, a sense of forlornness around him, yet those feelings were hidden well from the outside world.

She turned around and carried on grieving for the boy she never knew, ignoring the boys she will never get to know staring at her from the haven of the café.

The End