Page 14 of Better as It

“Have you met me? Common sense isn’t always my thing, babe.” We both laugh.

“I believe in you, Benji. This is gonna be fun. Just relax into it and listen.”

“Good thing I’m a fast learner,” he jokes with a proud smile.

He wasn’t a fast learner, but he was determined. It took two months before we could leave the housing development without him stalling. I remember every wobble, every curse, and every time he looked at me and asked,“why do you do this and call it fun?”

I sit up, staring at the pile of dirt. “I miss you.”

Skye whines.

“I don’t know how to breathe knowing you aren’t coming back.” I admit. “You put in the effort. If it mattered to me, it mattered to you. How am I supposed to go on without you?”

There is no reply.

“I don’t know how to forgive the world for this.” The wind blows again. I can almost pretend it’s his hand brushing through my hair. “I’m angry. I’m scared, Benji. Sometimes I think I hear your voice.” A tear falls down my face, but I don’t care. “Then I worry I will forget. I will forget what it sounds like to hear you say my name. I worry I’m going to forget what your hand on my thigh feels like. I don’t want to forget a single second, but I can’t stop the memories from fading. It shouldn’t be this way.”

The ache in my chest is sharp, sudden. I drop my head and let all the tears fall. I sit in silence. A bird chirps from a tree not too far away. The wind settles. Everything feels still.

In the stillness, I finally share the thing that scares me the most.

“I don’t want to move on. I don’t want the days to keep passing,” I whisper. “Because moving on even for a moment means leaving you behind.”

After a moment, I cry out. “I didn’t ask for this!”

But that’s the thing about grief. It doesn’t wait for permission. It just plants a seed that grows a root inside you. And it doesn’t ever leave. In time it withers some, but it won’t leave.

“I loved you, Benji. I love you.” A sob wrecks through me. “Always,” I whisper.

With every broken piece I had left, I loved him. Not in the naïve way I love Justin. No, Justin “Toon” Miller owns a piece of me I can’t get back. Or maybe I never want to. But it doesn’t change that I loved Benji. No one can take that away from me.

Not his mom.

Not a memory.

Not time.

I will forever love Benjamin Henderson.

No one can invade that, it’s ours alone.

Not even Toon, even if he shows up thinking I need him.

I don’t hear him pull up, but I do hear the gravel crunch under boots. Heavy footsteps make their way from the parking lot to the grass behind me.

I don’t look up.

I don’t care.

It doesn’t matter who it is.

I stare at the mound of dirt. The person stands a little ways behind me, not approaching.

Well, it’s not Benji’s mom. She would have marched right up here and told me this was her place, not mine. I’m sure that woman will hate me until the day she stops breathing.

The wind blows and I catch a small scent. A familiar one.

His cologne.

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