Someone  once told me, when the living pisses you off, you should  seek solace in  the dead. I'd always thought that was crappy advice.  That thought  doesn't stop me from doing just that now, though.

I  try to find my  own gravestone. It's an odd feeling, searching for your  own grave. It  makes me want to lock myself in a dark, dark room and  delve into the  intricacies of the thin line between life and death.  What happens when  someone goes missing and you never find the body?  Does constructing an  empty grave make them any less alive in your mind?

I don't find my grave, but I do find the last person I would prefer to see at the moment.

Ron   straightens up from the grave he was bent over from. He looks around   for someone to insult, and, failing to find Mike, says, "Where's your...?"   He grimaces in place of the last word.

"What's it to you?" I glare at him.

He smirks. "Trouble in paradise?"

I am deliberately obtuse. "This place could hardly be called paradise."

Ron narrows his eyes. "You should never have come back."

That, I can agree with.

When   I say nothing, he continues on. "We'd all have been happier thinking   you were dead, than being sullied by that–" and then he says a vulgar,   local word solely used for referring to foreigners.

Then I do what I have been wanting to all day. I slug him right in the nose.

Nothing   as dramatic as blood spurting occurs, but Ron does let out a  satisfying  howl and grab at his nose with both hands. I just stand  there,  massaging my knuckles absently and basking in this glorious  moment.

He  glares at me, one hand still on his nose. It doesn't  look broken – I  admit, punching people hard enough to break their noses  isn't exactly my  forte – so I don't know what he's whining about,  really.

Physical wounds heal quickly, after all.

"You've   changed," Ron says. His voice hasn't yet lost its hard edge, but now   with a tinge of fear mixed in. Poor Ron. He never has been good at   dealing with prey that suddenly learns to strike back.

"And you haven't," I reply, but it's more of a factual statement than a retort.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, sounding braver now that I seem to have lost interest in committing more violent acts.

I   look around the cemetery, at the headstones littering the ground.  Maybe  my name is on one of these headstones – anonymous, hidden among  all the  rest. And – maybe – that would be fitting. Maybe some things  are meant  to be left dead and buried.

"Don't worry," I scoff, "I'm just leaving. There's really nothing here anyway." I say this last sentence pointedly.

He understands.

Looking   at the irate expression slowly blossoming across his face, I laugh.   "And for what it's worth," I add, already starting to turn, "I hope you   have a nice life."

As I leave this time, it feels surprisingly good.

---

I'm   sitting on the hood of the car when Mike comes back. He is on his way   to the front door when he catches sight of me. He gives me a  half-smile,  and I know our argument from before has done no lasting  damage. He  walks over. "What are you doing?"

"We," I emphasize, "we're leaving."

He looks like he's been expecting this. "Running away again?"

"No," I say, "I'm not running away. I'm leaving, for good."

I   take a deep breath. "You're right. I wanted to come back. Call it   curiosity, whatever. Maybe I just wanted to reassure myself that leaving   was the right thing to do. And now that I'm back, it's so obvious. I'm  a  better person when I'm not here. I'm not running away this   time. I'm making a conscious choice to end this chapter of my life.  This  was my home for eighteen years, but it's not anymore. There's  nothing  left for me here." And I know I'm right. If my own parents  can't even  pretend to be happy about my impending marriage, I'm not  sure that I  want them there at all.

Mike stares at me for a long  moment. I  think, in a way, this is what he was aiming for when he first  persuaded  me to pick up that phone and dial my parents' number.  Closure.

Now he lifts his face up to the sky and exhales loudly. "Thank God," he breathes. "This place is driving me crazy."

---

END.