The Hallowed Ground of You

I stopped going back to the place where we first met.

Photo by Avinash Singh

The Divinity Gardens Cemetery had always been an escape of sorts for me. When I was in junior high, I would walk the two blocks after school with my backpack teeming with books and go into the cemetery lot. It was always deserted aside from the occasional groundskeeper depending on the time of year. I’d sit with my back to a headstone as I pulled out a book from my bag and revel in the fact that I had a safe space away from all the noise.

But then one day in high school — when I was just fifteen — I looked up and saw you.

You stood with your hands in the pockets of a beat-up leather jacket as you surveyed a stone engraved with a name I couldn’t read. Your head was bent, black hair curling down your nape with your shoulders curved as if you were a bird that might take flight at any moment. I must have said something — or made a noise of some kind — since the next moment you looked back and met my gaze with eyes the color of pure umber.

Your pale lips curved into a half-smile as I tried to catch my breath, frozen in the moment.

“This girl,” you said, gesturing to the headstone. “Mary Dare. She gave me a lot of trouble.”