Page 144 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
“Azaire Wenejad.” He can hear me—I have to believe he can still hear me when I whisper, “I love you.”
Sobs choke the words as I sit over him, stealing moments to steady myself—knowing if I lose control, I’ll lose him again, in a different way. A complete way.
As I hold his dead body, I pray to a goddess that has never heeded my wishes. I ask only that Azaire’s soul be safe, untouched. I ask only that she put him in the sky with the other constellations.
Then I walk to Lucian and lay a hand on his shoulder. His tears glisten in the moonlight. He meets my gaze, and I nod.
Lucian kneels over Azaire’s body. He lays the blue beanie over Azaire’s stagnant chest. Opening his mouth, nothing comes out. He falters on his knees, falling over himself, hugging Azaire’s dead body.
“I’m so sorry, brother.” I can feel his sobs, more violent than my own. “I’m so irrevocably sorry.”
I feel the words he wishes he could say but cannot. The heavy feeling in his chest suffocates him.
His guilt feels like my own. Perhaps it is. I don’t know why Lucian would be guilty.
“Azaire?” Lucian says. “Azaire, talk to me.”
Breathing hurts. Standing hurts. I fall, and that hurts, too. I exhale, but it turns to a sob. That hurts even more.
I have to pull myself together. I have to do this for Azaire. For his soul.
I won’t let him cease to exist like this. I’ll give his soul the fighting chance to survive. It’s all I can do for the boy I love.
Love.
Fear.
It’s all the same now.
I crawl to Lucian. I hug him. He cries over my beloved’s body.
“Come on,” I whisper.
Lucian holds me, and I hold him as we walk a step away from my baby.
My sweet, lovely, adorning boy. The best boy I’ve ever met.
The loveliest, kindest soul I’ve had the honor to know.
Dead, dead, dead.
The pressure of power that pushes through my eyes surpasses the pressure of tears. My arms lift, straining against the air as though it’s weighted, to the sky. Every inch of me shakes like an internal tremor until the world begins to shift, too.
Pressure builds in my chest, as if my heart is trying to come up my throat.
From the ground, grass grows. Slowly, the green coats Azaire, like moss overtaking a mountain. It covers him until there is no body left, and from it, bark pushes through. The tree reaches to the sky, the branches reaching for the stars. The flowers that sprout are the same gray as Azaire’s eyes.
Is that all of him that is left?
For a moment I wonder ifI’malive.
I’m gutted, hollowed out like clay on a lathe, and I stumble to Azaire. The tree. They’re the same now.
He’s really dead.
I should’ve let him hold me sooner.
Let me love him faster.
