So Much to See Tonight

“Come on,” he said softly, “you know I can’t do this on my own.”
The girl looked up from her hands with tears in her eyes, “I don’t think that I can do it at all.”
He slid his hands into hers, “Please?”
The girl bit her bottom lip before finally standing up and sliding on her pair of beat-up converse. She entwined her hand with his and waited for him to start walking towards the door.
It had been three years since Brian’s best friend had passed away. Every year they had dreaded December 28, but at the same time they knew that there was no escaping it. It always seemed to creep up on them, even though every day they lived with the reminders that their friend was no longer there.
Jimmy had actually been the one to introduce Brian and Lizzy. Jimmy and Lizzy had grown up together and she was like a little sister to him, and one day while the two of them were hanging out at Jimmy’s house, he invited Brian over figuring that the guy that was his best friend, should meet one of the girls that had stuck by him through everything growing up, no matter what kind of trouble he managed to get himself into. In fact, Lizzy was usually the one bailing him out of all the trouble he got into.
When Brian and Lizzy met, they hit it off right away. They were similar in a lot of ways, but different in a lot of others. They agreed on the things in life that really mattered, and that’s why they had worked out so well. they had been together for two years before Jimmy’s death. Ever since he passed, the two hardly ever left each other’s sides. There was a bond shared between them and Jimmy that they couldn’t even begin to try and explain to the rest of the guys.
Every year though, when December 28th came around, the two of them normally spent the day somewhat apart. Brian would visit Jimmy’s grave in the morning with the rest of the guys, and then he and Lizzy would spend the day at Matt’s house with the rest of them. Normally Lizzy visited Jimmy at night and left a small candle and a letter by his grave. She would go and look at everything that other people had left there for him and it would break her heart to see how many kids were missing their idol. She’d sit and talk with him for a while before finally forcing herself to leave and go back home.
This year though, Brian had told the guys that he would meet up with them at Matt’s house, but he wanted to visit Jimmy on his own this year. None of the guys questioned it; they all knew that every year was going to be different and they were each going to cope in their own way. Zacky told Brian to stay safe and that he’d see him at Matt’s.
When Brian had asked Lizzy the day before if she would visit Jimmy’s grave with him, she automatically said yes; she couldn’t just force him to go by himself. She loved Brian and hated seeing him so torn up every year. She felt the same way, but we always empathize with others more than ourselves.
The two of them walked out of Brian’s house silently, hand in hand. Lizzy looked around at everything around her, and it was like Mother Nature knew what a sad day today was. the skies were a dark gray with even darker clouds strewn throughout it. There was a warm wind that still somehow managed to give the both of them chills. It wasn’t like any other day that Lizzy could really remember. It was warm, but every single inch of her felt cold. She flipped up the hood to cover her neck and short black hair, and pulled down the sleeves of her Vengeance University sweatshirt. The cloth slid over the “Sullivan” tattoo that she got done on her wrist three years prior.
Brian slid the small piece of Jimmy’s drumset through his fingers as it dangled from the end of its chain. Goosebumps rose underneath his “FOREVER” tattoo on his chest and he fought the urge to shudder. He kicked stones along the sidewalk to try and focus on something rather than the tears that gathering in his eyes.
The two of them stopped at the gate to the cemetery. Brian looked over at his girlfriend, the tears now starting to break free and roll down his cheeks. She reached forward and brushed the tears away with her thumb.
She kissed Brian on the cheek. “Go on,” she said in a whisper as her voice cracked from emotion.
Lizzy remained at the gate as Brian slowly walked into the cemetery and over to the spot where his best friend had been buried three short, yet extremely long, years before. He knelt down on the grass in front of it and traced over his name with his thumb.
“It’s true you know,” Brian whispered as he read the quote that adorned the stone, “you never did hit the bottom; you flew up to Heaven before that could happen.”
Tears fell from Brian’s eyes onto the small, glossy gravestone. They splattered and coated his fallen friend’s name. He put his hand on the stone as his shoulders began to shake.
“I miss you so much,” he whispered as he fought to try and keep his voice quiet, “so, so much. I can’t believe it’s been three years. I didn’t think that I was going to make it this far without you; I can’t believe that I have. Without you here nothing feels right. I just want you back, man. That’s all I want. Even if it’s only for a day. I just want to get the chance to really let you know how much you mean to me.”
He knelt there and continued to talk to his best friend, as if they were standing face to face.
Lizzy couldn’t watch; she couldn’t handle how broken Brian was. she loved him more than anything, and she’d always be there, but this was something so person that she couldn’t even hope to intervene.
“I love you,” Brian said as he finished, “and I always will. I can’t wait until I see you again. I miss you, you crazy fucker. I always will. But, I don’t think I will ever be able to miss you as much as I love you,” he ran his thumb over the name and dates one last time, “Bye Jimmy, until next time.”
Brian slowly stood up and brushed the grass and dirt off the knees of his black jeans. He wiped the tears off of his face and ran his hands thorugh his hair. He stood there for a moment, just staring at the grave. It was like something was keeping him rooted to the spot.
No one could see it, neither Brian nor Lizzy, as a transparent white fog drifted across the cemetery. As it got closer to Brian and the grave, it slowly turned into their long-lost friend and brother. Jimmy’s translucent hand landed on Brian’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Even though his fingers went right through his friend’s shoulder, Brian felt the chill go through that part of his body and instinctively moved his hand to grab whatever was there. It went right through Jimmy’s fingers, but tears filled his angel eyes as he watched his friend hold onto his own shoulder in hopes of touching a spirit that wasn’t really there.
“I miss you too,” Jimmy said. But even though it sounded like words to him, it was nothing but a breeze to Brian.
Brian finally returned his hand to his side and began to walk away; he knew that he couldn’t stay there forever.
When he closed the cemetery gate behind him, he wrapped his arms around Lizzy and cried onto her shoulder. She held him tight and kissed his head, “It’s okay,” she cooed, “you did it. You made it. It’s going to be okay.”
Brian finally released his embrace and quickly wiped the tears off of his face.
“Are you sure you still want to go to Matt’s?” Lizzy asked him concernedly.
Brian nodded, “Yea, yea I think so,” he paused, “I need to.”
The girl nodded understandingly as they headed down the sidewalk in silence. They walked close to one another, but they didn’t entwine their hands; they were too lost in their own thoughts and memories for that.
They walked into Matt’s house and were greeted with hugs and hello’s as everyone tried their best to keep their emotions in check. They spent the whole day in Matt’s living room, drinking and talking and joking around. They told stories and reminisced as they tried to cling to all the good things that they had with Jimmy before he passed on. Lizzy was curled up next to Brian as he had one hand on her hip and the other holding a crystal glass with Jack Daniel’s in it.
It was about eleven o’clock when Matt finally asked what everyone was going to be doing for the night. “I don’t want any of you guys driving right now,” he said in a concerned tone. He knew that everyone had too much alcohol in their system to safely drive home.
“I’ve got plenty of extra rooms here for you guys to crash in,” he said as Val nodded in agreement.
“I’ll stay,” Zacky finally said. Johnny nodded but didn’t say anything. They all looked over to Brian and Lizzy. Brian thought about it for a moment before finally agreeing to stay the night.
“I,” Lizzy stammered, “I have to go.”
Matt looked at her questionably, but didn’t actually say anything. The rest of the guys looked at her expectantly, waiting for an explanation. Brian kissed her temple. “Go,” he whispered softly.
Lizzy got up and gave all the guys hugs and kisses on the cheek before flipping her hood up again and heading out the door onto the street to go back to the cemetery.
The wind whipped and pushed her even faster towards the graveyard. It was dark out, and not simply because of the night. There were clouds taking over the sky making it even worse. There were hardly any stars to be seen as the wind howled.
Lizzy stopped at the local liquor store and bought two 40’s to bring with her. She didn’t have her candle or anything written with her this year; she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
She pushed the graveyard gate open and it creaked slightly. She glided over the grass to Jimmy’s grave. She knelt down in front of it and pressed her palm to his name.
“Dammit Jimmy,” she said through the tears, “why’d you have to go? I miss you so much. Every day seems like a lifetime without you. The hours just seem to drag on and on because your craziness isn’t there to help move the minutes along. I’d give anything to have you back in my life again. I mean, I know you never really left, but I want to be able to see you and hug you and hear your voice again. I watch old videos from parties when we were teenagers and I remember all the crazy stunts we pulled. I just, I want that back. I want you back. It’s been so hard without you here.”
Tears were streaming down her cheeks and filling the engravings on the stone that marked Jimmy’s burial place. She just knelt there and stared at the stone and the grass surrounding it, as if that would bring him back to her.
After a few minutes, she sat cross-legged in front of his grave. She cracked open both 40’s that she had brought with her. She set one on the far corner of his grave, and she drank the other.
“To three years of getting through,” she whispered to herself as another tear fell from her eye to the stone.
She took her first sip when the rain started pouring down. The storm had been building all day, and it was finally breaking loose. It came down in sheets and quickly soaked her to the bone. She didn’t care though; nothing was going to take her away from that spot.
Jimmy’s ghost drifted through the rain, droplets evaporating instantly when they came into contact with him. He sat down next to Lizzy and eyed the 40 that she had left for him. He smiled to himself, “Only you Lizz,” he thought to himself.
He longed to speak to her, to hug her and tell her it’d be alright, but he knew that it was no use. He knew that she couldn’t see or hear or feel him, as much as they both wanted her to.
After another ten minutes of sitting in the pouring rain, Lizzy finally stood up, her 40 bottle hanging limply from her hand. Jimmy stood up as well, not wanting her to leave.
She ran her hand through her soaked, black hair and shook her head as more tears fell and mixed in with the rain. “I love you Jimmy,” she said in a voice that was more than a whisper.
Jimmy couldn’t take it anymore. He knew that it probably wouldn’t do any good or make any kind of a difference, but he wrapped his transparent arms around Lizzy in a hug. He pressed his face into the crook of her neck as his ghost tears fell from his eyes.
Lizzy felt it though; when he had wrapped his arms around her she had stopped getting hit with rain. It hit him and evaporated before it had the chance to get to her.
She gasped, “Jimmy?” she whispered, wondering if she would hear the response if there was one.
Jimmy pulled back a little bit out of shock. He hadn’t realized that she would actually feel his presence.
“I love you,” he said to her quietly, eager to know if she would hear him.
Lizzy heard the faintest whisper of words through the rain and wind, as if someone were speaking to her from very far away. She heard every word though, traveling from the afterlife into her ears.
“Thank you for taking care of Brian,” Jimmy said as he wiped his tears off of his glasses, “he needs you more than you know.”
“I miss you Jimmy,” Lizzy cried desperately.
“I miss you too,” Jimmy said as his ghost began to dissipate into a fog once more, “but I’m never that far away.”
Before Lizzy could say anything in response, she warm feeling was gone and she was once again being soaked by rain. She knew that he was gone. She looked back at his grave, and there was an empty 40 bottle. She smiled as she looked up into the clouds that were showering down on her.
One last breeze blew and brushed the hair out of her face, and just like that, the rain stopped.