Said Without a Sound

I didn’t leave the cemetery at the same time that everyone else did for the reception at our house. I decided to spend some time with Tom first. After we had thrown flowers down on the casket, the soil was packed in tightly, then the cemetery workers just rolled out some grass over the soil, and there you have it – one perfectly good grave. If I wasn’t at terms with Tom's death before, I sure was now. The burial always made it more official for me. By more official, I mean, really dead. But Tom would always live in my heart. He would always be twenty in my mind.

I yanked off my tie, letting it hang undone around my neck as I undid the buttons that had been choking me for the past three hours. “You comin’, Alex?” Rian asked quietly, standing beside me.

I looked up at my friend. My other close friends were right behind him. “Um. Yeah. In a – In a bit. You guys go on ahead, I’ll be there soon.”

Rian nodded and they drove off shortly afterwards. Zack, Rian, Jack, and Matt had been the pall bearers. I wanted to be one, but apparently, it’s bad luck or some superstitious bullshit to have a close member of the deceased person as a pallbearer.

After spending some time at Tom’s grave, I started walking to my car, but I decided to get onto that girl first. That girl standing on the shore of the small pond and feeding the geese. She annoyed the fuck out of me. She had been standing there feeding the geese, like she wasn’t standing in the middle of a graveyard. She needed to learn to show some respect.

“Hey, you.” She turned to face me when I addressed her, at least. Man, she was skin and bone, but there was something beautiful about her porcelain skin and fiery hair. “You know you’re in a cemetery, right?” She only nodded, returning her attentions to the geese. “Are you here for…someone?” She nodded again, and I noticed her snowy sky blue eyes fixated on the still water. “Oh,” I mumbled stuffing my hands in my pockets. I was going to tell her to fuck off and go feed some geese somewhere else, but…not anymore.

She silently held out her brown paper bag of bread crumbs to me. I reached in and grabbed some before we both fed the geese together. It was the first time in a long time that I felt nothing but…nothing. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t happy, but I was. And I am. And I will be. This girl had a weird effect on me.

“Do you, like, talk at all?” I asked when I grabbed some more bread crumbs. She threw back her head and her face lit up, mouth open with silent laughter. I could practically hear her laugh, but she wasn’t laughing at all. She just looked that happy. “No, seriously. Like…what’s your name? I’m Alexander.” Whoa. That was weird, to hear my full name come out of my mouth. I didn’t mean to say that.

“Guinevere,” she said so quietly that I thought I’d imagined it for a moment. Her voice was quiet from solitude and disuse. It was a little disheartening to hear, and I felt like I needed to whisper around her to compensate. “You can just call me Gwen, Alexander.”

“Ok…you can just call me Lex, Gwen,” I mimicked her with a small smile. Gwen smiled back before kneeling down and holding her hand full of bread crumbs out to the geese. All of them flew back, except for one. That goose ate straight out of her hand. When I tried to do that, though, they all flew away. All of them. None would approach me. It bummed me out.

“Who did you lose, Lex?” Gwen asked quietly, gently petting the goose now.

I licked my lips and sighed. “My…older brother.”

“You and your family have my deepest condolences,” Gwen murmured before wrapping her skinny fingers around my wrist and pulling my hands toward the goose. She had me petting the goose soon enough, and it didn’t fly away or bite me or anything. I was amazed.

“Who…Who did you lose, Gwen?” I asked, chucking some more bread crumbs at the geese on the lake. I heard Gwen sigh softly, but she didn’t answer my question. “You don’t have to tell me if you want. I’m sorry I asked,” I muttered, dusting my hands off as I stood up. “I was just – Gwen?”

Gwen was gone.