"Hey Lucy, I remember your name." Clinton Cave said softly, looking at the gravestone in front of him.
Lucy Delilah Woods
1996-2018
"And I left a dozen roses on your grave today. And here I am, in the grass on my knees, wiping the leaves away." He continued, kneeling to brush away the small amount of dead leaves that had gathered there.
"I hope you don't mind, but I just came to talk for a while. I got some things I need to say." He finally finished, looking up as her sister Ember walked up.
"Hey Clinton." She said softly, and he nodded.
"Now that it's over, I just wanna hold her." He said after a minute, and she nodded.
"I'd give up all the world to see that little piece of heaven looking back at me." He continued, and she chuckled.
"D, a piece of heaven?" She asked, and he shook his head.
"Good point."
"Look Clinton, we both gotta live with the choices we made." She said after a moment, and he looked up at her sadly.
"Yet, I can't live with myself today." He said, getting up and hugging her before walking back to his car.
"Hey Lucy, I remembered your birthday." He said a few weeks later, balloons in hand along with another bouquet of roses.
"And as stupid as it sounds, they said it'd bring some closure to say your name. By they I mean Ember and Mitchel, of course." He chuckled, and then tied the balloons to the stems of the roses before placing them in front of her gravestone.
"And just know I'd do it all different if I had the chance. But for now, all I got are these roses to give." He whispered, wiping a stray tear away before clearing his throat.
"And they can't help me make amends."
"I've gotta live with the choices I made, and I can't live with myself today." He said later that day, his brother Mitchel looking at him sadly.
"Clinton, man. You gotta stop doing this to yourself."
"What? You don't understand Mitchel. Not at all. I never wanted anything so bad, than to hold her again." He said softly, and then laughed once, a dark sound.
"I gotta go." He said bitterly, grabbing his keys and driving back to the cemetery.
"Just another moment in your eyes, is all I want. But I know I'll see you in another life, in heaven, or wherever you are, where we never say goodbye." He said as soon as he reached her stone, and then say against it.
"And now I've gotta live with the choices I made." He whispered, and then sighed once.
"I love you Lucy Delilah Woods. So much. And here's something else I never got to ask. Will you marry me?" He asked, tears flowing freely as he placed a ring box under the roses left there earlier, walking back to his car as a light rain began to fall.
And I can't live with myself today
Hey Lucy, I remember your name
