Obscured

September 13, 1952

I thought I could handle it!

Sorry.

It was a tough day for our city, but let's keep cool. I have to be strong for her. Today, the cops will ask me about the night I last saw Mary, and I need to hide the truth from the world, no matter what it takes.

…No, I can’t do this. I won’t lie!

If there was anything else that could be done, just one thing before the damn night, I would change it just so I could see her again.

My chest always presses together when thinking back of her pale face and frightened eyes looking at me with a plea I could not clearly understand, even as I stood at her grave and gave her a final farewell.

Still, now I guess I realized what they tried to say to me – Do what you think is right!

But what the hell was that right thing?! It’s so unfair!

For a few days, I thought I would try to put it behind me and move on. And I really tried hard. I tried to forget and clean out my mind with a bit of calm and loneliness of the forest where we were used to watching fawns cropping themselves on the meadow shined with dews glittering in the high grass every morning.

Unfortunately, all in vain.

I felt lost when remembering those words telling me so many different things. Just like I was clueless about choosing the right one. My heart constantly convinced my brain of something I was afraid of and let my conscience feel bad.

Then all of a sudden, I got it! That was my final decision. If there's no hope of rescue, at least it might help a little.

Although first I need to go somewhere.

Her grave was untouched and abandoned underneath the cover of dust and small piles of dirt that had fallen there during the cold and windy autumn days. At that moment, when I stood in front of that, right at the gravestone signed with her name I had still repeated since she passed, Mary St. Dean, and looking at the piece of rock from above, my eyes flooded with tears. Then my mind clouded with hellish fury destroying the neatly swept up path around, and the anger consumed my soul so strongly that I thought I was capable of burning the whole world. To overturn every rock and bury everyone who was guilty of her fate.

Including me.

It was tearing my heart to pieces, aware of my fault. My love was hopelessly devoted to her and yet, in fact, she put a deep trust in me, and I failed her for my frivolity. All these things made me cry at the end and I dropped my knees on the ground, devastated sinking my face deep down into my hands, wishing to be unseen.

For a slight second, I really felt like that. I was seized by that fabricated feeling that no one on Earth saw me, even though I knew in my heart that it was nonsense.

I was a fool.

In the days that followed, I closed myself off in the darkness of anxiety and sadness, not able to escape it. When Mary died, I didn't know what to think. One question kept running through my mind.

Was she doing the right thing, or was it a big mistake that she should have let go?

I’m betting she was murdered by someone actually, and I believe it was someone from her close surroundings.

Two weeks before, she had come to my house with a thing she desperately wanted to entrust to me.

However, I tried to let her keep that, but she didn't let on.

It was the kind of information for the police she said that remained hidden somewhere. I had stored it deep in my brain and wasn't sure I would find it when I needed it. Despite this, I was hoping something might help me solve my friend's death.

The cause for which she died was a serious one and she tried to prove it to everyone in our town. I also tried to understand her.

There was something in the atmosphere that we all felt every time we woke up. The others ignored it but not her. Mary knew there must be something else behind it. She lived it for her neighbors for many years, yet death overtook her before she could uncover the troubles that were supposed to soon doom the lives of all.

For days and then years I wondered what she was so afraid of because all she said to me that last night was – You've got to do something about it! – because after that she claimed she had to leave before it was going to catch up with her.

I was completely confused when hearing that and asked her what was going on, but she rushed off and disappeared in the midnight darkness before I could tell her that I would protect her. That whatever she needed I was willing to do to keep her safe. Though she didn’t let me, she said, for my good.

Now I regret my mistake of not being more forceful.

Since her funeral, I've been pondering how to fix it, and I decided to finish what she had begun. I think they all deserve to know the truth. …To save themselves.

Later, to my delight, perhaps everything worked as I had imagined, and Mary’s intention became known to others. As the news spread through the neighborhood, the town emptied out. Except for a few people who refused to leave their homes.

I stayed with them. And I waited for the fulfillment of the destiny I had been waiting for since I lost her.

My Mary.

The purest soul I’ve ever known.

Love of my life. …The biggest secret I kept for myself and regretted was that I never told her. I didn't tell her how much I loved her. And that was the largest blunder of my life. Life which I have never respected like I should. I should have taken my place next to her and lived every day to the fullest with her. Telling her that she is my one and only true love in the whole wide universe and repeating it every single day.

Well… starting tomorrow, I might get the chance to tell her because I understand she left this world to save us.

So, I’m gonna follow her.

Tomorrow… my meaningless self will die and a new, better one will be born.

Goodbye.

Steve Westwood