Prologue
“Why don’t you love me?”
“I do, but you’re not for me.”
“Why?"
“Because you’re simply not ready.”
°°°
My nose was drawn up by the smell of earth, pine, and leafy greens, and the air was eerie with silence. My thoughts ended and bounced off the vastness of the forest. For one, I did not hate it. I missed the startling sounds and buzz of city life. There was never a dull moment or a breath of fresh air. I hated the silence. It prolonged the memories that seemed to follow me like death on the edge of a cancer patient’s fingertips.
It swallowed me whole, but not before gurgling me deep within its throat. If savoring every moment of my agony.
I waited for Jeremy, but I knew he would not come. He wouldn’t. Would he? I pondered. I didn’t want to be here. The earth shook as it sucked the coffin into the ground. I shuddered at the thought of her decaying bones in the caskets.
He would not come. I suddenly felt certain. The wind blew against the makeshift tent we stood under. As if to protest, to object to the whole charade itself. “You are a clown,” it murmured as it tussled my hair. “You are a clown, Athena,” she whispered. Her death, it seems, could not keep her from whispering sweet nothings into my ears. I would not apologies nor give my thanks. “It is what it is,” I thought. The cards have been dealt. It is high time that I played my hand.
So, I left.
He did not come. I could no longer endure the plastic mumbles of “My condolences” and, God forbid, if they uttered “She was a wonderful woman”, knowing full well what she was like. “Wonderful,” a word that isn’t even close to any of the adjectives I’d use to describe her.
I don’t belong here. The earth is too wet. The air is too cold. The shadows of the trees hid too many secrets.
I don’t belong in Hazen Dell.
