four

                                        

                                              
FEBRUARY
IT DIDN'T MATTER that Hadley's dog was dead or how long he had been dead or how dead he was. It didn't matter that his heart had stopped and that they had buried him, old love rotting under the dirt in the backyard, a pile of bones marked on the earth by a collection of stones. It didn't matter that he could still see Jack putting the body in the grave they'd dug and that he could still see Tristan sitting on the grass, his knees against his chest and his arms on top of his knees, his blue eyes bloodshot and glassy, his lip trembling as the April sunlight streamed across the garden. It didn't matter that he could still feel that warmth on the curves of his face, the light flashing red against his eyelids, the shadows of the leaves falling over them while their parents made lunch inside and their neighbours had a conversation about lawn treatments. It didn't matter that he could still feel that silence, rooted deep inside his stomach, and the stillness that pierced them, even in that moving picture. 
Okay, so Kirby was dead. They had buried him and he wasn't coming back. That was all true. But, in a way, he was still alive because Hadley still thought about him. The memory of him was still lingering, still floating in an odd space of existence, and that meant, at least in some way, that part of him was still alive.
His grandparents, who had risen from dust and returned to dust, were, in some way, still alive because he still thought about them and because he still looked for them in the particles that floated under sunbeams. When he reached out his hand, rays burning over his loose fist, he still imagined that something of their essence was still there, hiding in plain sight, waiting to be seized, waiting to be remembered, waiting to be brought back to life. And when he opened his hand, revealing the emptiness on his palm, he found another cluster of particles and tried to hold onto those instead.
Sometimes, in still, silent moments when he walked into the living room or trudged upstairs, he swore he could smell that aged, floral scent of his grandma's old house— the house his cousin had since moved into and that he had never visited since— and he was brought back to her foyer and he could see her ceramics on the side, could smell the gardenia and orange blossom, could see the dark wood and her ironed trousers, the rings on her wrinkled fingers.
Sometimes, when he was in his bedroom, he swore that, just for a second, he could hear Kirby barking downstairs or could see his shadow when he sat in the garden. He still remembered the feeling of the fur between his fingers, those dark eyes, the weight of that head on his lap, on his chest, against his open palm. 
Sometimes, when he went walking on crisp winter mornings and late summer afternoons, the further he walked, the deeper he felt buried in the past, trying to keep it alive, always waiting for the beat of a long-still heart, always trying to feel the faint echo of an imagined thump.
Really, he knew that what was dead was not coming back. Really, he knew that once a day was over and the candle was burned out, that it would not relight. He knew that once it laid itself to rest, nothing was left of it but bones or dirt and those heavy memories, lodged in his heart like a shard, like something jammed in a hole in the side of a bucket to stop it from leaking; some that always lingered, buzzing in the back of his mind, and others that had claw marks in them.
When he'd showed up at the store for something to do, for snacks to buy for a movie that he'd intended to watch, he hadn't planned on spending time on the curb outside, but when he passed back through the automatic doors, escaping the fluorescence, he found himself unable to move, his body heavy and dull. So, he sat down on the freezing concrete, in front of the street lamps and neon building signs and the glaring billboards and the endless streams of traffic and car lights that burned out all the stars.
With his body like an anchor waiting to be thrown and the crisp wind lashing around him, he shoved his snacks into his pocket, pulled his sweater sleeves down over his hands, huddled into his coat and sat down on the glacial ground, staring at the desolate sky; the vacant city above his head.