Contrite

His arms wrapped themselves around her and the smell of her hair enchanted him even as her frame shook with erratic breaths.

Grass-stains were seeping into her jeans. Her make-up had spread grotesquely across her face; no matter how quiet she was, her tears still showed. But he found her beautiful anyway.

She couldn't stop crying. Maybe she didn't want to.

He leaned down next to her ear. "Shh...he's watching you."

She tore her eyes from the grave and stared "R-really?" The question came out half-whimper, half-stutter.

"Really." And he kissed her. A chaste pressing of his lips to her smudged cheek. Comforting and affectionate.

She collapsed into him, trying to talk, trying to breathe and unsuccessful at both. "I love him," was what he could understand of her mumblings. "And he's gone. He's gone." Hysteria and coherence battled in her voice.

"I'm still here," he murmured. He couldn't help himself.

She lay silently against his chest until the significance of his words registered. In a brief moment of irritation and unreasonable anger, she swallowed her sorrow and turned to the man beside her, furious. "Go away," she hissed.

"But--"

"Go, I said."

He didn't move.

"Go!" she screamed. Her scream vibrated through their bodies, turning her beauty terrible. She was a demon, possessed by loss.

Slowly, slowly he stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes. That was their goodbye. With one last look at her prostrate form, he walked away. And he wouldn't turn back. He wouldn't beg for forgiveness again. He didn't need her love and then her abuse and then her love. He only wanted it. Not anymore.

That was their goodbye, that one last hurt.

She didn't spare a single glance to his retreating back. She simply watched the headstone, almost hoping it would speak to her. It didn't.

She traced her fingers over the epitaph -- etched in stone, as they say -- wondering if her husband's hand would clasp hers again. It wouldn't.

And she sat in the cemetery, feeling like she'd lost everything in the world. She had.

One cold evening, just like this one but years from now, she will cry again. She'll wish she hadn't screamed. She'll miss the warmth of his arms around her shoulders and feel regret.

Too little, too late.