They were buried together.
My mom and Jase share a headstone as they’d buried him in her arms. I don’t come here often. It’s too painful, too raw, even after all these years. Vaughn used to bring me here on my mom and Jase’s birthdays, and the anniversary of their deaths. We would lay flowers and a cuddly toy. Over the years, the cuddly toys became moldy, and we had to throw them away, but they lasted longer than the flowers we brought for mom, so it never seemed like it was a waste.
I run my fingers over the lettering on the headstone, wondering if my visits here mean anything at all. Do we have graveyards as an outlet for our own grief? Or are our loved ones really able to hear us when we come here to talk to them?
I don’t believe in a God. If he really exists, why would he have caused such hurt, such pain? I was just a little girl. I was never really bad or exceptionally naughty. What did I do to deserve such a painful, life-altering experience? Better if they had killed me too.
I take a swig of the bottle of vodka I brought here with me and sit back against the headstone, my tears running down my cheeks and mingling with the vodka on my lips.
It could have been so different.
It should have been so different.
I should have a mother, a brother, a family.
Jase would be nearly sixteen now, and it’s physically painful to me that he didn’t get to grow up—that I didn’t get to see him growing into a young man and be a part of his life. He was very much like my mom. Quiet, contemplative, and kind. He had thick dark hair, just like her, and me. But he also had her nose and eyes. Her striking, ice blue eyes that made everyone stop and talk to us wherever we went. I remember him sitting up in his stroller, and pushing him through the town with my mom—it always took us twice as long to get everything done as so many people stopped to talk to him. He learned early on that he could smile and get everyone’s attention. He would have been a ladies’ man, for sure.
I laugh. Then I cry some more for all the time we’ve missed out on—for all the memories we won’t ever get to make.
A voice breaks the silence, and I look up through a vodka haze and a curtain of tears to see Vaughn. “I thought I’d find you here.” He stands above me and glances sadly at the headstone.
“Leave me alone,” I mumble, taking a long draw from the vodka bottle.
“You won’t find the answer at the bottom,” he comments, crouching next to me and brushing some of the dirt away from the deep engraving of my mom’s name.
“I don’t want answers, Vaughn. I want oblivion.” I take another swig and turn my body away from him, curling further into the headstone and wincing at the sharp pain that shoots through my ribcage. I have no idea if my ribs are broken. It feels like they are. But I’m halfway through this bottle of Vodka, and soon I won’t be able to feel it anyway.
“Are you hurt?”
“Hurt?” I stand abruptly and spin around to face him, making my ribs scream and my head whoosh from both the pain and the alcohol. “Am I hurt?”
He straightens up, recoiling slightly, taken aback at my outburst. “Your ribs, you—”
“Fuck my ribs,” I yell in his face. “Ribs heal, Vaughn.” He remains his usual calm, impassive self. “A couple of swift kicks to the ribs by a law enforcement officer doesn’t even come within a million miles to the pain I feel.”
“An officer did that to you?” he asks.
“Yes.” I laugh manically. “And you know what?” I ask, but don’t give him the chance to answer. “It has taken me this long to learn a very simple lesson. You can’t trust anyone, Vaughn. Not even those whose job is to protect you. You come into this world alone, and along the way, you’re fooled into thinking that changes. That somehow, the more people you meet, the more people you have in your life that you think you trust, that you think you know… you don’t got shit, Vaughn. Do you hear me? You’re on your own.” I prod the neck of my vodka bottle into his chest, and he stands there, taking it, letting me rant. I shoulder him out of the way, swigging from the bottle as I walk through the rows of graves. Resting places. Leavers behind of broken families and memories that will never be made.
You come into this world on your own, and if possible, after all life throws at you, you go out of it, more broken and alone than you started out.
“Sadie,” he calls out behind me. I ignore him and keep walking. “You’re wrong,” he calls out, running to catch up to me. I stop, placing the Vodka bottle on top of a headstone and turn to face him. “You’re wrong. You’re not alone. I’m here. I’ve always been here, and I always will be.”
“You might have heard me, Vaughn. But, you’re not listening to me, are you?” I place my hand on my hip but sway a little, only just managing to right myself. “I don’t want you, or anyone else in my life. I don’t want to be responsible for hurting your feelings, for causing you worry, for making you feel you have to give up any more of your life for me. Because I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it.”
“Let’s go home, Sadie. You’re drunk. You’ve had a long couple of days.” He frowns, holding out his hand, and I want to laugh in his face at the absurdity of it all. He always does this. He glosses over the situation, but offers a kind smile and tries to change the subject. “You shouldn’t be here in this kind of state…”
“In this kind of state?” I screech, snatching up the bottle and glugging down as much as I can manage before it starts to make me cough. “You’re not listening to me, Vaughn,” I yell again, staggering toward him. The edges of my vision have blurred, but it doesn’t deter me. “Go back to Reno. Work on your mergers and acquisitions or whatever the fuck it is that you do. I. Don’t. Care. I don’t want you, or anyone else in my life. Read my lips. Leave. Me. Alone,” I yell viciously in his face.
“You don’t mean that, Sadie.”
“I mean every word, Vaughn.” I throw the half empty bottle on the ground at his feet. “I don’t want this.” I gesture around us. “I don’t want you. I don’t want to be here, or anywhere for that matter. Just leave me the fuck alone.”
This time when I walk off, he doesn’t follow. I know my words must have hurt him, but I don’t care. I’m far too hurt, too sad, too heartbroken about everything in my life to care what he or anyone else thinks. I never asked him to father me. I never wanted to go to Reno, and now, I don’t want to be here. And as I stagger along, passing grave after grave, I realize it’s not just San Francisco where I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be anywhere on this earth.