Yesterday, I was busy working at the bookstore constantly thinking about the kiss every time I looked at Nico. We grinned back and forth a lot, more than usual. Today, I’m getting ready to hang out with Jessie before work, and Mom already left early this morning. She made sure she told me over and over not to let anyone into the house except for Jessie. As much as she likes Nico, no boys are allowed without her being present.

Nico is still going to come over to watch movies, though. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

I leave the house and pick Jessie up at eight this morning, yawning as she gets into the car. “When my alarm clock went off this morning, I had forgotten you wanted to go to the cemetery so early.”

“It isn’t that early. The sun is already out.”

Jessie lets out another yawn. “True, but I’m still in vampire mode—I need to lie back down inside my coffin.” She turns around and grabs the bag of supplies in the middle of the backseat. “Is this the stuff we need?”

Art has gotten me through a lot of the tough times. After Dad was buried, I became interested in gravestone rubbings. I haven’t been to the cemetery to try it out, but I’ve wanted to for a long time now.

Today is that day.

“Hopefully.” I wasn’t sure how to do it, so I searched Google like I do everything else. The website said that I would need tape, rubbing wax, scissors, a spray bottle, rag, masking tape, soft brush, rubber bands, a large sheet of paper, and a poster tube. A lot of things.

Most of the stuff I already had around the house except for the rubbing wax, so I went to the store yesterday and bought that. I haven’t been to the cemetery much since my dad passed. While I’m there, I figure that I’ll stop and say, “Hello.”

The cemetery where Dad is buried has different ages of headstones. There are some that are incredibly old, and then some on the newer side.

Jessie reaches to change the radio station while I’m driving. “So, your mom left for the week this morning? What are our plans? Party?” She has an expression of hope radiating on her face.

I shake my head. “No to the party. Nico is supposed to come over a couple of times this week.”

“Shut up!” She shoves my arm. “Why did you not tell me this?”

“Well,” I drawl. “It isn’t like I tell someone every time you come over. It isn’t a big deal.” I shrug my shoulders. “We plan to watch some movies.”

Tilting her chin down, she gives me a stern look. “This is definitely a bigger deal than me coming over. Does mother dearest know this news?”

“No, Mom doesn’t know,” I say guiltily.

“May is turning into a rebel. Does this mean more kissing?” Jessie laughs.

I shove her shoulder, and she laughs even louder, causing my grin to spread.

We pull up to the cemetery. There’s one other car parked, but I don’t see anyone around. If there were a funeral happening, we would have turned around and gone home.

First stop is my dad, and Jessie follows me to his resting spot. I locate his headstone and have a seat in the dew-covered grass. “Hello, Dad.”

Jessie places her hand on my shoulder with a solemn expression. “I’ll give you two time alone.” She leaves to look at potential headstones to try some rubbings on.

The weather is perfect. The sun is shining brightly, and the sky is filled with puffy, white clouds. I look and stare at them for a few minutes. “Dad, remember when I used to think they were marshmallows?

You told me that they could be whatever I wanted them to be. Well, I wanted them to be marshmallows. Then you told me to reach for them, and maybe one day I would catch one. Every single day I would stretch my hand up to the sky until my elbow ached, and my hand came away with nothing.

Finally, one day when I had my eyes closed and was wishing more than anything for a cloud, I caught one. It was one of those big, fluffy, cylinder-shaped ones. I know it was you that placed the marshmallow in my hand, but I was so ecstatic.

It was only a regular marshmallow, but to me, it tasted better than any single one I had ever tasted. The marshmallow tasted like strong winds, warm sky, spring rain, and future dreams; all wrapped up in that perfect bite. Not that my younger self knew what those tasted like, but the possibilities were endless.”

I wipe away the warm tears that are beginning to stream down my face with the palms of my hands. My eyes are beginning to blur with new tears, and I use my arm to try and tuck those back in. “Thanks, Dad, for always helping my dreams become a reality. Wherever you are, I’ll meet you on the other side one day.”

I sit there for a while longer, like he’s sitting next to me, imagining us sitting there in silence as we always did, and it feels nice. There aren’t enough words to describe how much I miss him, and I’m not mad anymore. I’m only glad that he’s no longer suffering the way he had been.

His headstone is directly in front of me, and I run my hands across the front where it has his name, telling him goodbye. I’m not ready to do a headstone rubbing on his today, but one day I will.

I walk softly through the grass, as if not to disturb any of the resting audience below. Jessie is already squatting and squinting her eyes at a headstone, reading what is written there.

She looks over at me with a close-lipped, welcoming smile—knowing she doesn’t need to ask me if I’m okay because I get better with each passing day.

“I think I want to do this one.” She points at a headstone directly across from her with a crack running up the side. Sprawled across the top are bird droppings and moss.

I pull out the spray bottle and brush and hand them to her. “These are to clean it, but be gentle when you do it.”

The headstone is from the nineteen-forties. I read the rest, while Jessie begins cleaning it. It reads that Sarah Riddle was a wife and mother. She died when she was only twenty-seven.

The times I have visited Dad in the cemetery, I walked around and gave my company to others along the way. Some of the older ones most likely don’t have visitors anymore. Every time I read the headstones and see that people have died at early ages, I want to know the back story of what happened or what the person was like.

If someone ever visits my dad’s gravesite, they may think the same thing. The answer won’t ever come, though.

Taking another brush and spray bottle out of the bag, I begin working on a headstone next to Jessie’s. This one has the name Joseph Riddle, and he died at age seventy-four. It most likely is Sarah’s husband. That’s a long time to live without his wife, but they’re together now.

“Okay, I think I got it clean enough. The top needed it. The cemetery owners should really hire someone to make sure these stones stay clean. I wouldn’t want bird crap on my house.” Jessie sighs and sets the supplies down.

I start to put away my water bottle and brush. “Your house?”

“Yes! These spots are their homes forever, so it should be taken care of,” she exclaims.

She does have a point. I locate the large roll of paper and hand her a piece. We fold ours both over our headstone and tape it off in the back, so it doesn’t fall off onto the ground.

I kneel to the bag and locate both pieces of wax and hand Jessie one. “Next time we can try it with crayon, but I wanted to use the wax this time.”

She nods and watches me as I start to get the hang of what to do. It’s easy, and anyone could do it. I rub mine for a while longer than Jessie, so I can achieve the exact shade depth that I’m looking for. I love doing this. Sketching, coloring, painting, I can get consumed by it all when I work, and when I finish, my heart feels full.

Jessie steps back and examines her work. “I may not be an artist, but I feel like one today.”

She took an art class with me in ninth grade. It was the first time that she had ever tried it, and it was also her last time. Every time she would do a project, Mrs. Burke would come and observe her.

Mrs. Burke was picky, but she was even pickier with Jessie’s art. She would squint only one eye, and it made it look like she was giving Jessie’s stuff the stink eye. She might have been.

She would take the picture out of Jessie’s hand and start sketching or painting it herself, depending on what we were doing that day. Mrs. Burke even started molding the whole project for her when we worked with clay. Jessie may not have been great, but she wasn’t that bad.

After that, she was done with art until she took up photography sophomore year. We did some cool projects where she would take a picture, and I would draw it. Jessie said we could make our own exhibit with these projects of real life photographs and drawings together. Of course, Jessie got tired of photography and moved on, while I still love art as I always have.

Carefully, we take our paper down from the headstones and roll them up. I hand Jessie a rubber band. I wrap my band around the paper gently, making sure it isn’t too tight, and then place it in the tube.

“Thanks for coming with me today. Not only to do the stone rubbings but to be here with me.” I grab my bag from the ground, and we start walking back to the car. There are two new cars parked, and an old woman is stepping out of one of them. Most likely to visit a loved one.

She moves closer to me and wraps her arm around my shoulder. “You know I’m always here for you, May. Now, I need you to help me.”

We stop in front of the car. “Oh, yeah? What do you need help with this time?”

She looks at me with that “in love” expression. “The new guy that started at work yesterday…”

Letting out a long sigh, I draw my hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose. “Don’t tell me you’re already crushing on John.”

This guy already seems like bad news and probably won’t even last a week. He has long, black hair that falls right below his shoulders, and he’s lazy. He’s also in a band which is the only good part. I know when Jessie heard the word band, that did it.

Her head hits the back of the seat with a dreamy expression. “Yes, and he’s in a band. The drums.”

I might not be so quick to write him off if he didn’t take a smoke break every thirty minutes, ignoring the only two fifteen minute breaks he’s supposed to have. Not to mention, he kept straining to read the print on the book covers to put them in the correct places.

I asked him if he needed to get glasses, and he said he has them at home but never wears them. If he needs them to do his job, then he needs to wear them.

“I’ll offer you a deal. If you pick out any other guy, I’ll be all for it.”

Jessie scratches the side of her hand, contemplating. “I don’t know, but I’ll think about it.”

After I drop Jessie off at her house, I drive home before I’ve got to head into work. I step into the art room that’s now mine only and set the tube from the cemetery against the wall.

I haven’t gone in here since Dad died, but I feel like I’m finally able to.