The Past

"Don't let the past get in the way of your future, it's called the past for a reason, keep it there..."

That’s what Jacob keeps telling me. He wants me to believe it and forget about the past, the bitter past that took him away from me. But how could I? He was my first love, my first everything. He was my first crush, my first kiss, my one and only. How could I just forget him?

It’s been three years now and I’m still grieving over his death. I blame and curse that drunk driver everyday for taking him from me. If that bastard hadn’t been so fucking wasted and decided to go driving around that night, he would still be here. He would still be here in my arms and I’d still have his lips on mine and still feel his warmth on my skin. But he’s six feet in the cold ground and that fucker is rotting in a cell, unscratched from the accident. I despise how fate fucks someone over like that.

All my other friends have forsaken me since his death. I don’t blame them; I had become a zombie in my own skin. I was depressed, I cried constantly, I still cry. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have red, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. I grieve for him. I’m not sure why Jacob even comes and tries to cheer me up, it’s not working, it hasn’t worked, he gets nowhere with me. I’ve told him countless times that if he were to somehow bring back my true love then I’d return to being the bright and happy kid I was before. But that’s a real fat chance and yet… he doesn’t stop his attempts at trying to make me happy.

Today, I’m on my usual routine that I go through every day. Each day after they placed my love in the ground, I go there with a bouquet of the sweetest and brightest dozen of yellow roses. Yellow roses were always his favorite, I found out that on our first date when I brought a red rose and he told me that he preferred yellow roses instead. I was embarrassed at first but every date that we went on afterwards, I always, always, greeted him with the sweetest smelling and vibrant yellow rose that would put the sun to shame compared to it.

I think the flower shop owner has already gotten used to my daily visits. She sets out the entire bunch of yellow roses on the front counter and greets me with a smile when I come in every day at the same time. I pay for the roses and leave quietly after she bids me a good day like every other time when I leave the store. I roll my eyes because I won’t ever have another good day. I need him for that to happen.

When I arrive at the graveyard, the grass is still wet from the dew of the early morning; I notice on the small paved walkway that someone has been through here recently because of the wet shoe prints. I look up and scan the other graves to see that no one’s around. I shrug and continue walking down the same path I’ve taken every day that I come here. But I notice when I’m almost at his grave that the shoe prints are leading into the same direction that I’ve been walking towards this whole time.

“Seth… I don’t know what to do anymore. He’s a hopeless case… nothing I do or say is getting through to him.” I heard a few sobs coming from the grave that I visited and the voice, I knew that voice and the fact that it was laced with nothing but sadness made my heart clench up in my chest and my stomach churn.

His back is facing me as he kneels in front of the grave. He runs his hand over the name that was engraved in the stone and continues, “Help me make him happy again. Help me show him that there’s someone else out there that can love him and give him the world like you did.”

I blink back a few tears that brim my eyes, willing them away, and bite my lip as Jacob choked back another sob. It was only then that I realized I had put him through hell the past three years. His clothes looked dirty and wrinkled like he slept in them and hadn’t changed in them in weeks, his black hair that used to be something he took pride in flaunting to impress women was now greasy strands. I wouldn’t doubt his face was even worse and I couldn’t stop the guilt from devouring me when I realized that I hadn’t noticed this sooner.

Each time he came to see me and try to cheer me up, I never once looked him in the eye and I never did take notice to his clothes or anything. I was too consumed in wallowing in my own grief and hurt to notice he was going through hell, too, but it was because of me.

“Seth, I know I tell you this every time I come here and I felt so horrible thinking that I had a chance with him now that you’re dead because of the way he grieves over you but I love him.” Wait… what? “Even before you two met, I loved him and I still love him and I want him to love me… I wouldn’t ask him to replace you with me because I know you were everything to him and you still are but I want him to see that I can love him now in a way that you can’t anymore. But I’m losing hope that that will ever happen.”

Jacob loves me? Was that why he stayed by me and tried to help me cope after Seth’s death? Because he loved me? But how and why would he anymore? I had been so selfish and blinded by my own sadness and hatred that my love was taken from me to see that I was hurting him.

I brush back my brown fringe from my eyes and take a step towards Jacob. I didn’t know what I’d say because after everything I put him through, I doubt “I’m sorry” would ever be enough. A few tears betray me as they fall down my cheeks as I walk up to him, either he didn’t hear my steps on the gravel that covered the grave or he didn’t pay attention as his body shook from the sobs that were coming from him making my heart feel like it was going to fall out of my chest.

I kneel down beside him and set the yellow roses down on the grave before I place my hand on his knee. His head jerks up and turns to face me and the sight of his face made my heart break in two. Jacob was always one to care about his appearances, he always had to have eyeliner on wherever he went and his skin had to be clean and sun-kissed to have the perfect tan that drove everyone crazy when they laid eyes on him. Yet here he was beside me with his eyeliner running and smeared from wiping the tears away with his hands while his skin was paler than usual and a few blemishes were forming where his greasy strands clung to his forehead. He looked terrible.

“M-Mikey…” He gasps and turns to face away from me as I watch his hands wiping desperately at the tears that streaked his cheeks. “I, uh, I-I didn’t want you to s-see me like th-this.”

He might not have wanted to me to see his breakdown but I was grateful for it, I had gotten a wakeup call from the ache in my chest and the guilt eating away at my insides. I chew on my lip, unsure of what to do or say to him but my body seemed to know what it wanted to do, something that my mind couldn’t process until my arms reach out and I move to wrap them around him in a hug. I feel his body stiffen as I rest my head against his back and I can’t help the tears that seemed to pour out of my eyes.

“I’m sorry Jacob. I’m so sorry… I-I don’t know if you’ll ever f-forgive me for shutting you out and away for the p-past th-three years and I-I wouldn’t blame you at a-all if y-you never wanted anything else t-to do with me but I-I am so very s-sorry.” I kept repeating “I’m sorry” for countless times while he stays silent until his body slowly starts to relax a little in my grasp.

“Mikey, I do forgive you.” He whispers as a few drops of water fell down on my arm that are still wrapped around him. “I forgive you… I promised Seth that I wouldn’t hold any of the past three years against you. I know how important he was to you and I know that what you two had, you wouldn’t be able to easily let it go.” He pulls away from my arms to turn and look at me.

Our eyes connect to each other’s and I cringe at the puffy, bloodshot eyes that were still watering of his. Jacob was too beautiful of a guy to be here, crying his eyes out and looking like hell. I probably looked the same to him because it’d been quite awhile since I’ve showered, cut my hair and cleaned up my appearance but he smiled despite it. He smiled at me like I didn’t look like shit, like he was happy.

He pulls me into a hug that surprises me at first until I wrap my arms around his waist and sigh contently. He held me close enough to him that I could feel his heartbeat against me and we stayed like that for a few moments until I realized something. The hug that we were sharing, I don’t know if it was the fact that Seth was so close to us or that we were still on his grave but it felt for almost a moment that I was hugging him instead of Jacob. I shook my head to rid myself from thinking that because this was Jacob that I was holding, I cared deeply for him but I didn’t want to think of him as Seth.

Jacob pulls back for a moment and he surprises me yet again when he places a soft kiss against my forehead. “You... you heard my conversation with Seth, didn’t you?”

I couldn’t lie to him with his emerald eyes that seem to be gazing into my soul, as cliché as that sounds. I hesitantly nod, “Y-yeah, I did. I-I didn’t know that y-you liked me l-like that.”

“Well, I do, I always did and I meant what I said.” He smiles and I see the reason why girls fall weak at the knees when Jacob shows interest in them, his smile is breathtaking. “I know that you still love Seth and I’m okay with that but… over time, I’m hoping you can come to love me too.” I open my mouth to speak but he cuts me off, “I’m not asking you to replace him with me, I would never ask you to do that, just… just love me and return my love.”

I break my gaze from his eyes and glance over at Seth’s tombstone. My eyes trail over his name and I can’t help the pain that resurfaces in my chest when they do but… would he hate me if I did move on or, at least, try to move on? I would never forget him or a single moment that I spent with him but would it be so bad for me to move on? Seth would probably hate himself if he saw me now and knew that he was the reason that I was such a mess and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if he did that.

“Mikey, don’t let the past get in the way of the future, it’s called the past for a reason, keep it there.” I look back at Jacob as he used that same quote again to see that he was also looking at Seth’s tombstone, “Seth wouldn’t want you to grieve over him forever. Your happiness is all he ever thought about and you know that.”

I sigh to myself and slip my hand into his, drawing his attention back to me. He was right; Seth would want me to be happy whether it was with him or someone else, that’s what made him the greatest guy in the whole world. “I won’t promise anything… but with t-time, maybe I c-could…”

“That’s all I ask and I’d wait for you to the world’s end. I love you.” He places a kiss on my cheek and holds me to him as I silently pray that I can move on from my dead lover’s embrace and with time that I can love this beautiful and amazing guy that’s holding me now.