Chapter Eleven

    Meadow

    One Month Later

    All Grayson left me was a note. Three words, eight letters that he couldn’t say to me in person. He never did tell me that night, just held me in his arms, spent the last moments of his life with me.

      I hold the paper in my hands now, but I don’t look down at it. Instead I hug my knees, letting the paper sit on the other side of my legs where I can’t see it. I stare out at the window, watching the leaves blow down the grass and onto the road.

      I wonder if Grayson is here right now, watching me. In some form, I hope he is. But regardless of where I think he is, I always lie in my bed at night, staring out my window at our star. I would rather be at the tracks, lying in the grass and pretending he’s there with me as I stare up at it, but I’m not allowed to go there anymore. No one is.

      I went there a few days after his passing and everything’s changed. It was no longer the happy, joyful place I remember. No trains went by, giving me that ‘on top of the world’ feeling. Nothing.

      They closed off the whole area of the tracks. Fences are being built, signs put up, and one, small cross stands inside them. No one’s allowed there, but Grayson’s still there, in some form. His mother buried him in a cemetery not far from here, but it doesn’t seem like the right place to mourn him. He died, right on those tracks. His soul left his body, his life ended, right there. Not in the cemetery, not six feet under the frozen ground, not even where the cross is. But right on the train tracks. I can’t even go there to see him.

      Grayson threw himself in front of the train. He left another note, not for me, but for the paramedics that rushed to him. He called them before he did it, telling them what he was doing, knowing that they wouldn’t there be fast enough. His note was lying on the ground, staying put from the wind under a small rock.

      He wanted his heart to go to me.

      I knew something was different about him that day, but I didn’t want to look into it. I should have. Maybe he would still be alive and maybe his heart wouldn’t be removed from his body.

      I don’t hear my mother crying in the kitchen, like I usually do. She’s been much worse lately, because of the news of what Grayson did and what I decided to do with his heart. It’s like she hates me and mourns me at the same time and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand living like this, without my best friend. He was the one who was always there for me; the one who made everything okay. But now he’s gone, and he’s left an earthquake in his wake.

      The house is silent and I hug my knees a little tighter. The wind hits the glass window, creating the only sound in the silent house. The sun is setting and I wait, just like I do every day. I know my time is near, my life is getting weaker, but I haven’t had the guts to do this until now.

      When the sun’s down I grab my coat and tie my shoes. I fold a blanket under my arm – the blanket Grayson’s mother gave me. We’ve been close since it happened. I was worried she would hate me for what Grayson did for me but it’s the exact opposite. She knows what I’m doing tonight and consents it, understanding completely where I’m coming from. She doesn’t resent me, but loves me more for what her son did. I don’t understand it yet, but I accept it because our friendship won’t last much longer.

      Outside, the air is cold, much colder than usual. I hug my jacket tighter and quicken my pace, though it makes my chest hurt. I can’t move very fast anymore without it hurting my heart, and my doctor confined me to bed-rest. I don’t listen, and though my mother sobs to me about not doing what he said, my father understands it.

      “You don’t want to spend your last days lying in bed,” he had said when I brought it up. “Do what you want to do with your last days, Meadow. Whatever you want to do, I support you.”

      I think that’s the closest my father and I have ever been, at that very moment. And I’m glad.

      Part of the fence further down the tracks isn’t up yet. They wanted to do the place where Grayson died first for safety purposes, but because they can’t build it all in one day, an orange make-shift plastic fence takes its place. I stomp it down easily and climb over, tripping slightly.

      I walk the half mile to our place, putting a small smile on my face. I don’t feel happy, or even close to it, but I feel closer to Grayson, and that’s enough.

      When our hill comes into view, I imagine Grayson and I lying there, like we did that night, pointing up at the stars. I’m smiling and so is he, but in my mind, he doesn’t die after. He’s still here, still happy.

      His cross is placed on the hill. His mother wanted it there after asking me what I thought. The authorities objected but she, like the strong mother she was, took charge.

      “My son is dead,” she had cried to them, yelling. “If I want to put a cross here, I’ll put a damn cross here.”

      I lay the blanket down around it, wrapping it slightly around the white wood. The view of it sends chills up my spine but I ignore them, instead listening to the quiet of the night. Once I’m done spreading the blanket I lie down beside the cross, hoping that in some form, Grayson is lying beside me, just like we used to.

      I look up at the star as tears leave my eyes. “You said you promised to meet me there,” I whisper to him, wherever he is. “You better be there when I get there.”

      I open the piece of paper and look at it one last time.

      I love you.