Letters to Elle

14 | Third Time's a Charm

                        FOURTEEN

                        THIRD TIME’S A CHARM

                                    ♡ ♡ ♡

This cemetery has sort of become a comfort area for me. It’s creepy as hell and there are dead bodies buried in graves scattered underneath the surface of the earth. I’m sort of freaked out and yet I’m amazed by it.

            How can life be so . . . temporary as to where people resort to burying their dead loved ones in the ground?

            The dark night sky surrounds me and frightens me at the same time. I’ve never been to a place with so much death all on my own before. I’m usually with another person, and I’m not sure how I feel about coming here without my brother or Elle. Every little noise scares the living shit out of me and in my mind I’m being stabbed to death every time I hear a scrape or a crash.

            I have a flashlight lighting my way toward Elle’s grave. My feet softly pad against the stone path leading straight to my destination.

            I’ve wrapped myself in layers of clothing, trying to block out the cold December winds threatening to gift me with frostbite. What a lovely Christmas present.

            Christmas has seemed to have . . . snuck up on me faster than I anticipated. It seems as though just yesterday it was December 1st, and I was finding the first letter on my doorstep. Now it’s already three weeks into December and Christmas is right around the corner—next Wednesday, to be exact.

            The saying is that time flies when you’re having fun, but these past three weeks have been anything but fun in my opinion. In fact, they’ve been terrifyingly horrendous.

            Tomorrow is the last day of school before Christmas break, and Jer and I have decided to meet up again for our project. Ever since Marnie, we haven’t been talking, and I don’t blame him. It’s a big deal for him to invite me over to his house and into his life once again. I’m sure tomorrow isn’t going to be welcoming though. He’s probably going to be cold as ever.

            Once I’m standing in front of Elle’s headstone, I inhale deeply. Before I drove myself here, I knew that I was going to find something. I knew that that letter had said for me to come to Elle’s grave.

            And sure enough, there is something waiting for me, innocently lying on top of the stone.

            A picture of Elle and I ripped down the center where Elle and I are separated. That’s freaky in its own dimension, but the fact that it’s taped back together is even a little creepier. And to top off the whole scary shit going down, Elle’s face is scribbled out with a red marker, a gigantic X marring Elle’s beautiful face.

            Tentatively, I lean down to pick up the picture. Turning it over, I notice that there’s a note. And I just know that whoever left this—certainly it wasn’t Elle herself—knew that I was going to find it.

            Right at this moment I wish I could just dig a hole and bury myself in there forever and silently die. Painless.

            Roses are red,

            The back of the picture reads.

            Violets are blue.