The Lie(68)

“Tell me a story about that cloud,” he says, pointing.

The cloud had no shape at all, but then before my eyes it starts to transform into a face. Into Natasha’s face.

I swallow hard. “That’s a girl,” I say quietly.

“She’s a princess,” he offers. “Tell me a story about her.”

I stare up at Natasha’s deep eyes and high cheekbones, done up in wisps of white. “Well, there once was a princess who loved a man very much. And the man loved her. Swore he would slay dragons for her, walk through treacherous lands for her, do whatever he could to be by her side. He prepared for the moment that she would be his and he would be hers. But that moment didn’t come when he thought it would. The man had to lose everything in his life instead.”

“Did he get the princess in the end?”

I look at Hamish with tears in my eyes. “I don’t know, son. He’s still fighting dragons.”

“Did the man have a son?”

I nod. “Yes,” I whisper. “A wonderful, beautiful son.”

“Where is his son now?”

I take in a deep, shaking breath and look back at the cloud of Natasha which is becoming more blurred by the moment. “His son was one of the things he lost. He never found him again.”

“Do you think they’ll ever find each other?”

I nod, a tear streaming down my cheek and onto the grass. “Maybe just in dreams.”

“Why are you crying?” he asks me.

I turn my head and take in his beautiful face. “Because I love you. And I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

He grins at me, showing off a missing tooth. “You know I’m okay. I’m here with you. I’m never not with you.”

I reach across to grab his hand, and I do for an instant. So small and fragile and warm in my grasp. It feels like heaven.

Then, just like the clouds, he begins to fade, turning into wisps of white, until I’m not holding anything but air. My body begins to pull away from the scene, the false reality rushing past me until it’s all gone.

I wake up slowly. When I have dreams like this, I hang on to them as much as I can. I don’t groan and moan my way into the day. I don’t rush. I grab hold of every feeling and every memory before it’s lost forever. Dreams are the only way I see Hamish now, and I’d be a fool to waste them.

Today is different though. I can feel it in my bones, this dark matter that seems to leach out of my body and onto the walls.

It’s September 26th.

The anniversary of Hamish and Miranda’s death.

I should go back to Edinburgh, visit the cemetery like I’ve been doing every year—sometimes by myself, sometimes with my parents. But this is the first year I’ve had my job back, the first year I’ve tried to really pull myself together.

I take out my phone and check the train schedules, wondering if I have enough time to make it up to Edinburgh this weekend. I don’t really and decide I need to do something here in London to honor them. I don’t know what, but even just getting Miranda’s favorite flowers and Hamish’s favorite stickers and scattering them in the Thames feels like enough.

But it’s never enough. That’s the thing. There’s not a single ritual I could do to ever make it be enough because nothing will ever convey how sorry I am, and nothing will ever bring them back into my life. My attempts to honor them only serve to bring me peace and nothing more.

Peace, even now, in the throes of love, is still so fleeting.

Later that morning as I’m about to rush off to school, I get a text from Natasha asking me if we should go to dinner together. Aside from a few nights here and there, we’ve been spending all our free time together, so plans seems like a given. A wonderful, easy given.

But not tonight.

I text her back. I’m not good for company. Hamish and Miranda died this day.

There is a long pause from her and then those bubbles appear as she tries to type something over and over again. Finally she says: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.

I know you didn’t. It’s okay. I’ll talk to you later.

I don’t mean to be standoffish about it, but it’s got to be strange for us to be together at a time like this. Besides, I need to be alone. I have to be. It wouldn’t be right otherwise.

Though, for the rest of the day, nothing seems right. I grieve for Hamish, and I feel guilt over Miranda every single day, so this day shouldn’t feel any different than normal. But it is and it does. I can barely make it through class, and I don’t spend any time on tutorials or my book. I can’t. I leave and head home, surprising Winter with a long walk around Regent’s University, drowning in my sorrows to the point that even Winter is subdued, his head low, eyes glancing at me warily.

When I get back, Winter heads straight to the couch and stares up at me with big blue eyes. I pour myself a pinch of Scotch and stare out the window at Baker Street, trying to get lost in the imagined lives of the people walking to and fro. But I can’t. I can’t escape the pain nor the life that I chose.

I head out the door, even as the night is growing dark and cold, the sharp chill of fall. I pick up peonies, Miranda’s favorite flowers, then head to a toy store. I’m immediately lost within the racks, trying to find something he would have liked. He liked dinosaurs. Bugs. Monsters. Science. I pick up a pack of dinosaur stickers with the T-Rex and Stegosaurus he would have loved, and then make my way down to the Thames.