Where the Stars Shine Brightest

It’s short story time again! Enjoy, and feel free to comment and let me know what you think! ~Alice

A cold, wet, rainy day had settled upon the town. Fitting, she thought, for the task at hand. She took a deep breath, grabbed her umbrella and her purse, and opened the car door.

She opened the umbrella out of the door and stepped out under it. Her skinny black heels sunk into the wet grass. She cursed as she closed the car door, dislodging the heels to take a step, only to sink back in again. She knew better than to wear them, but they were his favorite of all the shoes she owned.

She held the umbrella and her small clutch purse in one hand, and smoothed down her skirt and hair with the other. She straightened her spine, looked straight ahead, and began to walk to her destination. She was determined to be strong. Her shoes made a loud schluck noise with every step. She had to walk very carefully to avoid losing one.

She approached her destination, and her knees began to wobble. She wanted to turn back, to rip the heels off, toss them away, and run as fast as she could to her car. She couldn’t, though. She knew she had to do this. She owed him this much, at least.

When she reached the tombstone, she stopped and stared at the bouquets of flowers lying on his grave. His mother and sister, she was sure. She had made sure to come later in the day to avoid them. It’s not that she didn’t like them, or was afraid of them, she just needed to do this alone.

She stepped closer, until she was about 3 feet from the tombstone, standing directly over where his ashes were buried. She stared at the tombstone, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I miss you.” She took a deep breath as the words caught in her throat. She needed a moment to compose herself. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. That was a mistake.

As soon as she closed her eyes, visions coalesced in the darkness. He was walking next to her, their hands clasped together, fingers intertwined. They had just left the movie theater, and were heading to their favorite bar to meet with friends. They took a shortcut down an alley a few blocks away from it, and halfway through, a man jumped from behind a dumpster, a gun in his hand.

“Wallet and jewelry, now.” He was dressed in black, with a ski mask pulled down over his face. They were both dumbstruck for a moment, and he squeezed her hand tighter as it started to sink in what was happening.

“Give him your wallet, honey. We can replace whatever’s in it. Give it to him.” She pulled her hand from his and slipped her purse from her shoulder, holding it out to the robber. “Here. Please don’t hurt us.”

The robber took the purse. Her love looked at her, frowning, as he pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “This isn’t right. Why are you doing this?” The question was directed to the robber as he held his wallet out to him. The robber took it without answering.

They were waiting for him to leave, but he was staring at her hand. Her engagement ring, a 2 carat princess cut diamond winking from the setting, had caught his eye. They had only been engaged for a week. “I want that, too.” He gestured towards her hand with the gun.

Her love looked down at her hand, and his eyes went wide. He shook his head violently. “No. NO! You can’t have it. Not that.” He took a step in front of her, between her and the robber. The robber raised the gun, pointing it right at his chest.

“I said give it to me. Take another step toward me and I’m puttin’ a bullet right in your heart, man. Just gimme the ring!”

“Honey, we can get another one. Here.” She was trying to slide the ring off of her finger, but it was stuck. She started twisting it back and forth while tugging, trying to get it to budge.

“No! I said no. You can’t have it. There’s plenty of money in my wallet and her purse, that’s enough. Now get out of here.” He took another step between her and the robber, and her head snapped up. She gasped.

“Honey, don’t!”

It was too late. His blood splashed across her shirt as the bullet exploded out of his back, punching a hole the size of a grapefruit as it exited. She shrieked at the top of her lungs, collapsing under him as he fell backwards.

She opened her eyes, the tears flowing down her face in streams that rivalled the falling rain around her. She choked and sobbed, falling down on her knees in the wet grass on his grave. The umbrella fell to the side, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even feel the rain as it pelted her, her fingers ripping at the grass, digging into the mud.

“Why?” she sobbed. “Why couldn’t you just let him… let him have the fucking ring!!”

The ring hung from a slim gold chain around her neck, and she reached up, gripping it, and gave it a hard yank. The chain snapped, coming loose in her hand, dangling over his remains deep under the ground.

“I still have it. Are you happy? I still have the god damn ring, but I don’t want it!” With this she flung the ring and chain down. It landed against the headstone, making a small clink as it hit and bounced to the grass. “I’d have rather had you. I want you. I need you, not the fucking ring. It means NOTHING without YOU!”

She collapsed, her arms folded against the headstone, her head on her hands, weeping. She had no idea how long she laid there, feeling the ring pressing against the side of her hand as her tears flowed over it.

When she sat up, opening her eyes, the rain was gone, as was the sunlight. Her eyes still stung from bright light, and she shielded them as she looked around. She was no longer in the graveyard, nor sitting in grass and mud. The surface beneath her was soft, supportive but flexible, as if she was sitting on pillows. She looked down and noted it looked like a cloud, or the stuffing from inside of a plush animal.

She looked around her and gasped. The world she knew had disappeared, and was replaced by a vast expanse of dark sky, with bright lights shining against it in all directions. Some were far off, and looked like the stars as viewed from earth, but some were very close, and looked as big as a soccer ball inches from your face before impact.

One was so close that she thought she could touch it, if she stood up on her tiptoes and stretched. The center was a swirl of light, fading as it extended outwards. It’s glow had a blue cast to it, reminding her of her love’s eyes in moonlight.

Her grief at the thought overcame her sense of wonder, and she flopped back onto her butt, a tear rolling down her cheek. She pulled her knees to her chest and laid her head on them, unable to focus on the beauty and mystery around her as visions of the murder visited her again. Just as her shoulders started to shake, a hand touched her back.

She dove forwards and flipped over, scrambling backwards as she looked to see what had touched her. She stopped moving, stopped breathing as her eyes settled on her love, standing in front of her, a small smile playing upon his lips.

“Hi.” His voice sounded the same as always, deep and yet soft, lulling her, calming her with a single word. She could do nothing but stare, open mouthed, as he stepped forward and crouched in front of her. “Surprised to see me?”

She nodded slowly, still staring. A million thoughts flew through her mind at warp speed at once, but she couldn’t settle on one long enough to voice it. He smiled and watched her, seeming to understand her confusion, sitting down a few feet in front of her and crossing his legs.

“How?” she managed to spit out. She couldn’t grasp how he could be here, sitting in front of her, wherever ‘here’ was. He looked just as he had the night of the movie. He was even wearing the same clothes, minus the bloodstains. He shook his head, the smile faltering on his lips for a moment as he stared down into his hand. He looked back up at her, his blue eyes broadcasting his pain.

“Here, you dropped this.” He held out his hand, and lying in his palm was her engagement ring. “I died for this. Please don’t lose it.”

She stared at the ring, and the rage she felt in the graveyard swept over her again. There was venom in her voice as she spat out her reply. “I didn’t want it, and I still don’t. That ring only meant something to me when you were alive. Do you really think that ring was worth your life?”

He sighed and looked back down at the ring in his palm. He shifted it so that it was gripped in his thumb and forefinger, and turned it this way and that, watching the starlight gleam off of the facets in the diamond. His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

“No, I suppose it wasn’t. I can see that now.” He looked up, his eyes fixing onto hers. “Our love was worth everything, though. To me, that ring was a symbol of our love, a sign that we would be together forever. I should have known better, but I didn’t. I’m so very, very sorry.” His voice was shaky and seemed to catch in his throat.

She shook her head, staring at him, tears welling in her eyes. She reached out her left hand towards him, her fingers straight and stiff. He took his cue and slid the ring onto her ring finger, just as he had the night he had proposed. She choked back a sob and threw her arms around his neck. His arms encircled her as she shook, her tears soaking the shoulder of his shirt.

“Am I dead now, too?” she asked. She wasn’t sad about the prospect, but she was afraid of his answer. She wanted nothing more than for him to answer that yes, indeed, she was dead, and they would be together forever more.

“No, baby. You’re not dead, just sleeping.” He rubbed her back as she sobbed. Her crying went on for quite some time before she sniffled, leaning back to look into his eyes again. He smiled and reached up with both hands, wiping the tears off her cheeks. When they were gone, he leaned in, his hands still on her cheeks, and kissed her lips slowly and softly. When his lips parted from hers, they both sighed.

Suddenly, a loud voice echoed around them, the source unknown. It seemed to come from every direction at once, echoing as it bounced around the stars and clouds.

“HEY! Hey lady! You need to get up, lady. You need an ambulance?”

Her eyes shot wide open, knowing what it meant that they were hearing that voice. She mouthed the word no, unable to find her voice, and he grabbed her shoulders, forcing her attention to him, not the voice.

“Listen to me, we don’t have long. I know you miss me. I do. I’m so very sorry that I was so stupid. I didn’t want to leave you. You’re my everything. But whenever you miss me, whenever you need me…”

The voice got louder, booming in their ears as it echoed and reverberated through space. “HEY LADY! You gotta get up, the cemetery’s closed now!”

Everything around her began to dissipate, including her love. She screamed so loud that she almost didn’t hear his final words, and once the real world drifted back around her, the rain soaking her clothes, hair and skin, she fought hard to remember them. The night watchman shook her shoulder, and she looked up at him, her hair pasted to her face, her clothes glued to her skin.

“Finally, you’re awake! You need an ambulance? I can call one.”

She blinked a few times at him, then shook her head, looking around her on the ground and retrieving her purse and umbrella. She stood up, and just as she started to lift the umbrella over her head, the rain stopped. She closed the umbrella and put the strap around her left wrist. As she did, she noticed the ring on her finger.

She reached down and removed both of her shoes, ignoring the watchman as she headed towards her car. She was covered in mud, and it was squishing up between her toes, but she didn’t care.

When she reached the car, she opened the door and tossed in the umbrella, her shoes and purse. Suddenly light glinted off the diamond on her finger, and she looked up at the sky, taken aback at how many stars were visible after it had just rained. As her eyes passed over a particularly bright patch of them, his words returned to her.

“…whenever you need me, look for where the stars shine brightest, and there I’ll be, looking back.”