Separate But Not Equal

Chapter XXIII

"Rose?"

I wipe away a single falling tear, messing with my plain black dress and sitting down on the painful, rough, dry grass.

The grey, brooding clouds were racing amongst the sky, the whole landscape completely foggy with drops of rain, and loud sounds of incoming thunder filling my ears and catching me slightly off guard.

I look at the small, dirty, engraved tombstone standing weekly covered in... ivy.

The amount of large, distracting trees placed all around me made me feel covered and safe but scared and exposed at the same time.

It took only about an hour of walking for me to reach the location, and my legs were bleeding severely from the amount of times that a wooden stick or sharp leave stuck out from absolutely nowhere taking me by slight surprise and cutting my knee.

There was nothing and no-one around me for miles and although everything looked disturbing and sketchy, I ignored any signs of danger and just carried on sitting near Rose's grave for a few minutes before speaking again.

"Hi. I-I brought flowers again," I placed the whole arrangement of roses down in front of the grave. "They're all roses. Once again, because you used to always smell like roses, that was your special scent, Rose. Roses and Rose. Do you remember how dad and I always used to make fun fun of how ironic it was?"

I look around me for a while hugging my body tightly and rubbing my cold arms slowly.

I read the tombstone again slightly biting my lips, 'In loving memory of Rose Elizabeth Jones'

Elizabeth is Mama's name.

...Was Mama's name.

Which is probably why Rose, as the first child, had Elizabeth as a middle name. 'A caring daughter and generous sister. In our hearts forever,'

"Well, erm, unlike every week, I came here to talk about a boy," I laugh, nervously. "Weird, right? Ever since Nathan, I haven't even thought of boys. I never though this would be the first place to go when I do but I- I just need to talk."

People have called me pathetic for visiting Rose's grave every week and believing that my sister could ever hear or comprehend my problems.

I don't care, I never cared because whatever it is something makes me feel like I need to come here every Saturday and whenever I come here to talk to Rose's tomb, I actually feel like I'm talking to Rose.

Because somehow I feel like whenever I just let go of all my problems in front of her stone, for a few hours the problems just disappears.

"Anyway, there's this boy. His name's Christopher. Christopher Evans. He- he's white. A lot. Very white actually, and I know if you were here right now you would look at me as though I'm crazy. But Rose...  at this point I think that I am crazy. It's strange but he's, he's different. At least different from the rest of them. I mean sometimes he's just a complete, well for lack of better words, dick. He can be a complete and utter dick."

I can already hear Rose's instant reply now.

"If he's a dick then how is he different than any other one of them?"

"Yet, sometimes he cares, sometimes he's nice and genuine. Sometimes he makes me believe that he's really a good person that's just been put in the wrong place. That's what makes him different."

I stay silent for a while just listening to the rain hit the leaves and brushing over the petals of the roses lightly rubbing the soft flower between my fingers.

"It may be an act though. Maybe he's just pretending that he's not like everyone else so he can get close enough to hurt me as much as possible, to cause me even more damage.  Honestly, I think that I might be immune to emotional pain at this point considering everything that's happened in the past few years." I start collecting a pile of crispy, leaves now, breaking and playing with them. "I don't want to take any risks. I don't want to become emotionally attached."