When summer rolled around, you told me to meet you at the shrine. You were going to show me something, and you thought visiting a centuries-old site was the way to do it. But I went anyway. The house was empty, and home was a million miles away. You met me by the graves, and like a subtle warning of what is to come, I met you there too.

Neither of us spoke, even as we trailed under the glare of the flowering trees and faceless people passing by. The cicadas drowned out most of the cars' engines, muting our world into nothing but the unforgiving force of nature and the glare of the sun from behind your head.

You pointed to the spires painted red, the spires which reminded me of thistles dipped in blood and aired out towards the sky. "What do you think?" you asked, as if you wanted to know what I thought and not because you wanted to fill the silence too thick for us to embrace. "Should this shrine be torn down?"

It is easy to forget what I said that day, but I cannot. I knew of the demolition plans. Something about seeking to build a more modern town as if a few glass buildings would make all the difference. Glass is as fickle as the heart. Shatters easily like it too.

So, I said, "I don't really care."

If you were hurt by my lack of sentiment for the past, the present, or the future you idealized, I am sorry. But I was not sorry then. If I had known what you would do, I would have told you a thousand words to make it different. I would have uttered a million lies to keep you.

But you laughed. Built yourself a skin of diamonds and a heart of steel. "This shrine will be here forever, trust me," you said. "The past has a habit of clinging on."

And I wonder—how much of that was true for you the moment you threw those words to the wind? How much of that was true when you lay down and never got up? How much of that was true for me, who was stuck in it long after you freed yourself?

Perhaps, the silence had told you my answer, but under the blaze, through the sweat soaking your shirt, and with the thick air begging to be breathed with ease, you asked again. "If you can't say those words, why not sing them?"

It was absurd. I must have laughed, and you must have joined me. "Are you prone to spout nonsense?" I asked in return.

You shrugged, a carefree smile meticulously hiding everything simmering beneath your loveless eyes. "I find joy in nonsense."

But there was no joy in your face. Or in your heart, for that matter. I should have known back then, but I was too young. Too ignorant. Too full of my own misery to notice others. It is funny, is it not? We want and want and want to be heard, but we do nothing to make sure we are.

We walked further. I remember my feet aching. The longest journey I ever made was from the front of my house to the back. But you did not seem out of breath. Full of life—it is what I would have described you then, if words had not failed me. If they had not failed you.

"If I sing," I prompted when we reached the shrine—a stone cross perched behind the array of tombstones. You sat down on one of the sun-baked benches. "Will you join me?"

"I'll probably bust out some tunes on the piano," you looked at the clouds, the flowering bushes dancing with the wind, the flocks of birds zipping between the spindly branches. You never looked at me. Not since I told you I did not want to be found. "I can play the guitar too."

I plopped down next to you, my soles scratching against the cracked soil—untended beyond years. The heat scorched the skin of my thighs, but I did not care. I preferred burning. "But no singing," I summarized.

You gave me a sort of smile you would at a funeral. "No singing."

"Why?"

It was a question—I was not sure if it was an innocent one—but I threw it to your face anyway. Without care.

You thought about it. Long. Hard. Eyebrows creasing and a finger tapping your chin, as if you were afraid to give out the wrong answer and betray yourself. You did, anyway. You betrayed yourself.

To me.

"I don't have the words," you said finally. "If I say something aloud, even if to sing them, they will probably speak ill of me long after I'm gone."

It was nonsense, but I was told you loved it. Ran to it when all else failed. "I mean, I tried," you continued when I thought you were not going to betray yourself further. "But most of the time, I just end up batting keys on the piano or strumming endlessly on my guitar until my fingers blistered or the strings snapped. So I stay away from singing."

"Or even trying to," your voice died down to a minute whisper, leaving in me the image of your hands ripping piano keys, feet stomping on rusty pedals, eyes looking at everything and nothing—wishing and wishing at countless stars to take you away.

I wonder if it had been your way of screaming.