Gone

It’s gone.

It’s quiet.

Crying.

It’s cold. No one is saying anything. I can’t hear anything. My back hurts.

It’s dark. A girl stands alone with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. A drop of wetness drop on her cheek. She moves to wipe it away but drops her hand back down. Another falls into her dark brown hair. Another on her eyelash.

A brown box is lowered into the hole. She straitens her neck, letting all the drops fall to the ground. Her features scrunch together. Her nose and eyes turn pink.

Dirt is tossed into a hole. She looks like she’s drowning. The wet drops fall to the muddy dirt. Her coat is wet. Her shoulders are slumped, a heavy burden placed on them.

I try to say sorry. To say goodbye. I reach out. But a woman comes from behind. She had the same hair, with a strand of white. The woman places a hand on the girl’s shoulder. The girl flinches. The woman says something, but I can’t hear. Her shoulders shake from the cold. The girl’s shoulders soften and they walk away.

I sit on the grass. I don’t feel anything, just cold. An old lady and man stand closest to the covered hole. They sit in silence. The man is touching the woman’s back and the woman is holding her head in her hands.

A child sits with them. He looks confused like he doesn’t know why he’s here. He’s digging into the ground with his little fingers. I get up and walk to him, crouching down to see what he was doing. There was a circle. Then a stickman. Two stickmen. They were holding hands, smiling.

He writes “Yola and Me.” Yola ticks with me. I think I’m Yola. What a weird name. I laugh slowly.

His head snaps back to face me. He sits there, staring at me. I stare back.

“Yola?” he asks. I say nothing. He looks around me. The boy looks sad now.

The old woman shakes abruptly. The man looks at the boy and shakes his head. The boy nods, zipping his lips. He goes back to his drawing.

He puts an X through the stick figures. Another in the names. He rubs them out with the palm of his hand. He puts on a stick figure and writes, “Me.”

A tear slips down his cheek. He knows why he’s there now.

I stare at him for a long time. The boy doesn’t acknowledge me.

The family sits there the whole time.

When the sun started coming out, the man gets up. The woman looks up at him. He nods and says something. I still can’t hear. She gets up and holds on to the man’s arm. The boy gets up. The man picks him, smiles a sad smile, and puts him back down.

They start walking away. I walk after them. The boy stops. He looks back at me. Feeling overcome everything I tried to do this whole time. I hug him. He shivers underneath my arm and lets out a loud wail. The man looks back, looking at me kindly.

“Goodbye.”

The man smiles, nodding. I let go. The boy, Mikey, looks up at me. I stare back. He nods as well, skipping off to the sun.

The girl comes back. The sun was gone. The moon was reflected in the puddles. She stands in front of the hole where the box had disappeared.

Her coat was dry now. She has blue eyes. Her nose was sharp. But her features had softened.

The hole’s outline was still visible. Her eyes trace over the lines. I stare at her from the center of the hole. Her eyes were still red, and her nose was becoming a shade of pink again. I want to say I’m sorry, but I can’t. I watch her.

“Are you there, Yola?” she asks, “If you are, I’d like to say some things.”

She pauses, then says, “If you can hear me, you were a trash friend,” she flinches, “You could have told me. I would have understood. Why did you jump first?”

Jumping.

Falling.

Splat.

I try saying something, trying to explain.

She turns away. Tears were really running down her cheeks now. Sophia. Sophia walks away.

A bird jumps out in front of her. It was a single goose. Sophia jumps back. Looking at the goose one final time, she runs away, wiping her face with the sleeve of her hood.

She comes back again the next time. Something always happens. Sometimes a car passing through. Other times, a security guard. She never gets caught.

One day, Sophia comes to the hole. The hole was less defined, just dirt now. The only way of knowing it was there was because of the rock placed near it. But Sophia was able to find it.

Today, she came and stood there in silence, like she’s been doing. The crying had stopped. Occasionally, she’d talk about her day, nothing much.

A woman stalked behind her today. She watches Sophia stand silently. Sophia says nothing.

“Sophia? What are you doing here?”

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

“I asked you first, do you need counseling again?”

“No! I do not!”

The woman grabs Sophia by the wrist. She’s the woman from before. The one with the dark brown hair and streak of white.

I get up, trying to stop what I see. Sophia’s trying to let her go. I touch both their arms. They both pull away, shivering.

“Come on, let’s go,” Sophia’s mother says.

Sophia looks around but stops when she sees her mother. She slouches when she follows Ms. Steve.

I don’t see Sophia. Not for days. Those days turn into months. Then a decade and a half. I wait.

Mikey comes back in ten years. He’s grown into a tall adult. He didn’t have the tiny fingers he once did. Mikey hadn’t come in how long now? 15 years. But he stood in front of me.

His hands were stuffed into his jean pockets, staring at the black stone.

“Mom’s. . . dead,” he says.

I don’t remember her so, it was fine. Or I thought it was. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Dad had a heart attack,” his voice cracks, “And you’re dead.”

I am, aren’t I? Dead for 15 years, waiting. For what?

“Well, I’m going off to college. I won’t be back in a while. Maybe never, okay? Don’t try to miss me when I’m gone,” he tries to smile but fails miserably. He crouches down, looking straight at me.

“I don’t even know why I’m here. I knew you were there on the night of your funeral. I felt it, but I knew you weren’t there.”

Right, they didn’t see me. It was pure coincidence.

“It’s okay,” someone says. The speaker was a tall beautiful woman with large eyes, “We all miss her.”

“Sophia. . . You’re back in town?”

“Yeah, it’s been a while. How’ve you been holding up?”

“Good, I guess.”

“She’s gone still.”

“Yeah,” Mikey looks at the stone, “Well, I’ve got to go. College is waiting.”

Sophia nods, “See you soon.”

Mikey walks away. Sophia sits in the space where he had sat. She looks around, “No more flowers, huh?” She frowns, “15 years sure pass by fast. I’m a writer now, can you believe that? 15. . .

“You’re there, aren’t you? I always feel your presence. Right there,” she points at me, pinpointing exactly where I was, “Right there,” she repeats.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Yeah right,” she says. I’m about to say I am, but she says, “you’re not there. Welp, I’ve got to go.

“We’re all going crazy,” she whispers, “talking to ghosts.”

I get up, watching her go. Sadness takes over. I walk past my boundary, the lines of the hole resisting. She looks back once. Just once.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I should have talked to you. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped off the school. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you,” I hug her tightly, not letting go.

She stands still, looking at me. Right at me.

Warmth fills in the coldness. Light fills in the darkness. I’m sobbing, letting everything out. Sophia’s head is resting on my head. She’s shaking.

“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

I can feel myself disappearing. My legs disappear first but I’m still standing. She holds me tighter. My features start to disappear but I can still see everything. She’s saying something that I can’t make out. My body disappears but I can feel my heart beating.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you either,” Sophia says before I’m gone completely.