Chapter Thirty Nine: Graveyard's Deafening Silence
Sophia Crawford

I thought my life has taken a turn for best seeing that my father was back in my life, living with me and my grandmother again after he left my mother for good.

Even River and I were on good terms for the very first time in a very, very long damn time. One can even call what we have a decent friendship now, even after the awkward kiss we never got a chance to talk about because he has left me and my father to talk things out, something he never had a chance to do because the pain of seeing his father again after the terrible things he has done to them.

The nightmares I was getting before meeting River were at a minimum, and I found myself waking up actually looking forward to the day without feeling dread lingering in my veins, but even though my life has taken a turn for the best, nothing could have prepared me for this day.

Today was worse than any nightmare I have ever had. It was the day I have been dreading since the drive to the prison a little more than a week ago.

It was the seventh of December today. It's Daniel' birthday.

I was lying in my bed, staring at my ceiling and listening to the bird's chirping coming from the trees right outside my window. Even though it was snowing heavily outside, the birds didn't care about the cold or the snow invading in on their homes. They sang happily because they survived through the night, and they were letting their friends know that they survived, too.

I kept lying in my bed with my comforter pulled tightly over my body until I could muster enough strength to get out of the safety of my bed to take on today, but the strength never came; I couldn't get out of my bed.

I sigh, turning my head toward the nightstand where my alarm clock stood.

The time read: 06:55.

I was way too tired to let River come over for today to work on the essay seeing that the caterpillar has reached his final stage in growing until he has to hatch, but I couldn't face him today, so I decided to send him a message to let him know that I wasn't in the mood to work on the assignment with him today.

I lean over to the nightstand, grabbing my phone.

SOPHIA CRAWFORD: I'm not feeling well. Can we work on the editing for the essay some other time? Maybe tomorrow?

Ten seconds after the message was sent, it wasn't even seen yet. It was still too early for him to be awake yet so I doubt he'd read the message now.

I place my phone back onto the nightstand and finally gathered enough strength to throw my feet over the bed to climb out of it. To be honest, I would've stayed in bed the entire weekend if I could; but there are things I need to do today.

I saunter over to my bathroom, closing the door behind me.

The smell of breakfast being made downstairs wasn't even enough to get me in the mood for today, even though my grandmother's cup of coffee was enough to pull me out of whatever dread state I was in today because of Daniel's birthday.

My hand instinctively moves to my chest where my engagement ring usually hung, but I sigh in defeat when I feel nothing but my pyjama top's material there and not the cool metal of the ring against my collarbone.

My ring was still missing, without a trace.

I release a deep breath and shimmy myself out of my pyjamas.

I get into the hottest shower in the entire world and let the warm water do its job to ease the dread I felt bubbling up inside me from having to go and visit Daniel's grave today to wish him a happy eighteenth birthday.

The dread never left my veins.

• • •

"Morning, Grandma. Dad." I smile, even though it was very much forced.

Both my grandmother and dad smiles sadly at me and just looking at their saddened faces made me want to cry on the spot.

They knew.

"I can drive you, if you want?" My dad suggests. "It is a very long drive there."

I shake my head at him, a small smile splaying on my lips. "It's okay, Dad." I tell him, toying with the sleeve of my hoody so that I won't cry when I look at his saddened face. "I'll manage. I'll hail a cab and come back when I am done."

"Coffee? Tea?" My grandmother asks and I nod.

"That would be nice, thank you."

We drink our tea in silence.

• • •

The graveyard's silence was deafening.

The only sound came from the small iron-wrought gate when it screeched open and when I clicked it shut behind me. That, and the sound of dogs barking in the distance and cars driving by every so often.

The gravestones look lonely as I pass them, as if their family members haven't visited in a while. There were flowers near their graves, but they were all dead and covered in a thick layer of white snow.

I look at the bouquet of flowers I had in my hands, hoping that they'll bring some colour to the dull graveyard. Hopefully someone would enjoy looking at it before it gets covered in snow too like the rest of them.

Sadness washes over me as I pass more gravestones.

All of these people had meaning. They had a purpose before they died.

All of them died of different causes; heart attacks, old-age, drowned and even car accidents, if they weren't on the list of the victims that have been murdered. It's sad, but it's true. Just look at River's family-Beck and his mother-they were murdered and buried with people that might have died the same way.

My heart clenches inside my chest, reading the words written on the gravestones as I passed each one of them: beloved son, beloved mother, beloved father, beloved sister, beloved grandparents, beloved aunt, beloved uncle, beloved friend...

All of them had a family. All of these people were alive at some point in their life and now they were just gone. Did the people who lost them feel the same dread I felt having to visit the grave of someone they lost? Or did they manage to move on-something I could never do even after a few months has passed.

I swallow hard, clutching the bouquet of flowers tightly in my hands when I finally reach his grave.

Daniel's.

I feel a wave of guilt wash over me. I haven't been here in a while because if I was here often, there would've been a fresh bouquet of flowers resting atop his grave every single day I visited. His gravestone would've been wiped clean of the snow and his letters of his name and birthdate and death would have been cleaned each and every day to prevent moss from growing over the gravestone.

But I wasn't here since he was buried in this grave over a few months ago.

There wasn't a bouquet of flowers resting atop his grave and his gravestone was covered in a thick layer of snow, restricting me from seeing his entire grave.

It was like he was forgotten already, but for me, he was gone, but he would never be forgotten. Daniel would never be forgotten. Never in a million years.

I will make sure of that. Daniel would forever be remembered.

The cold breeze of the wintery weather blows across my face, sending shivers cascading down my entire spine. Snowflakes were coming down gently, falling onto my hair that was pulled into a tight, messy bun at the top of my head.

I sit myself down, not even caring about the coldness of the snow or how it was going to start melting and completely soak through my pair of pants. I plopped down without a care in the world and used the sleeve of my hoody to wipe away the snow that covered the letters on Daniel's gravestone.

I place the bouquet of flowers down right in front of his grave and trace the letters engraved into the gravestone with my index finger.

DANIEL OAKLEY,

BELOVED SON AND FRIEND

'he could light up an entire room with just his smile'

They were definitely right about that.

He really did light up an entire room with just his smile. It was contagious.

He was also a friend to many.

He had a lot of damn friends. Daniel was very popular; had every girl falling at his feet, but yet he chose to sit with me each and every day. He ignored other girls trying to catch his attention, and he only had his eyes on me.

He wasn't just my boyfriend, he was my best friend too-the best one I could ever ask for. He was my forever. He was my Daniel Oakley. He was my light in my darkest of times, but that light died the night Daniel passed away.

"Hi, Daniel. I'm sorry I haven't visited often." I start to speak, feeling my throat already closing up and my eyes starting to fill with fresh, warm tears. "I came to wish you a happy birthday. You're officially eighteen, yay!" I clap my hands, hearing the echo of my claps run through the empty, quiet graveyard.

A warm tear trails down my cheek. "I didn't visit because I felt guilty." I tell him, wiping the tear from my cheek, but they kept on coming. "I feel guilty because you're here, because I put you here."

I let my hand fall to my lap. "I miss you so damn much." I tell him. "It's been tough without you, to say the least. Things have been difficult for me, but it'd be so selfish to say that seeing that you have it worse off than me. You can't even celebrate your eighteenth damn birthday because of me." I prop my hands into my hoody pockets, feeling the tips of my fingers starting to get numb from the cold.

My butt doesn't like the fact that we were sitting on a big blob of ice, either.

"To tell you the complete truth-and I know you'd probably turn in your grave if I say this-but I wish that I was the one that would be buried instead of you. You deserve to be alive, Daniel, but I took that right away from you and for that I am so sorry."

I pause for a few seconds, staring up at the sky instead of the letters engraved onto his gravestone, and I swallow hard before I start speaking again. "There's something else." I start, "I, uh, I lost the ring."

I take my hand out of my hoody pocket and rest it onto his gravestone again.

"I am sorry that I am a crying mess right now when I'm actually supposed to celebrate your birthday with you, but I just had to get it off my chest. There's no one I can talk to but you. And I just know that you would've told me that it was okay that I lost the ring, and you'd comfort me, hug me tightly and say 'I love you, Sophia. I don't care about the stupid ring.'" I chuckle at myself. "Well, I wish you'd just scold me for losing the ring other than saying that it was okay that I lost it, but you weren't the scolding type. You are the sweetest guy I ever came across in the entire world. You wouldn't even hurt a damn fly."

There were a lot of damn things I wanted to say to him, but so little time. "I'm sorry that you're here instead of me, Daniel. I'm sorry that I caused the accident. I'm sorry that I looked away from the road knowing that it was a reckless thing t-"

Snow and dead leaves crunching behind me in the distance made me stop mid-sentence. I turn my head slowly, wondering who'd visit the graveyard right when I wanted to visit it, but I see a woman walking with a bouquet of flowers, too, and when she came closer, I realised who the woman was.

I could recognise her brown hair and kind eyes from anywhere.

Daniel's mother.

"I thought I'd find you here today." She smiles sadly at me.

"Mrs Oakley." I sniffle, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. "Hello."

"You haven't returned any of my messages, so I figured I'd wait until today to find you." She says. "I knew you'd be here today. You never missed his birthday."

Guilt washes over me from all sides.

"I didn't think you would want to contact me ever again since... you know..."

"Nonsense." She says, sitting beside me on the snow. She didn't even care that her pants were going to get wet from the snow. "I would have wanted to spend more time with you despite the accident."

Her words caught me off guard, to say the least.

She must have sensed my confusion because she smiled sadly at me again. "Sophia... I would never, ever blame you for Daniel's death," she says, "it was an accident." Her brown eyes were starting to fill with tears, making her eyes look like pools of warm chocolate. "I was sad. Daniel was my only son at the time. But what happened was just an accident, Sophia."

I shake my head, slowly. "But it wasn't just an accident, Mrs Oakley. I looked away from the road, you know that."

She shakes her head and smiles sadly at me." Sophia... that is what I wanted to talk to you about."

I frown at her. "I'm sorry, but I'm confused..."

"The accident was never your fault even though you did look away from the road."

My frown only deepens.

"Sophia..." She pauses. "There was a drunk driver behind the wheel that night." She starts to explain. "He came into your lane and crashed into your car." She then takes my hand into hers. It's something I never thought she'd do seeing that I took her only son from her. "Sophia. You didn't kill Daniel. The drunk driver did."

Tears were streaming down my face as I processed her words. "But... I looked away from the road. If I saw him coming, I would have managed to get out of the way in time."

"I don't want you to blame yourself for someone else's actions anymore, Sophia." She says. "The accident wasn't your fault. You didn't kill Daniel. The guy who was responsible for causing the accident came to our home and told us what really happened."

"But why would you tell me this? I thought you hated me?"

She chuckles. "I could never hate you." She inhales deeply. "I thought of you as my own daughter the same day Daniel brought you to our home. I have never thought of you differently after the accident, and I never will, either." She places the bouquet of flowers onto Daniel's gravestone. "I wanted to tell you this because I knew how much you beat yourself up over the accident. I wanted you to know the truth because I knew you blamed yourself for the accident. But I also wanted you to know that we never did. We could never blame you for it."

I swallow hard. "Thank you, Mrs Oakley. You don't know how much this means to me."

"Please," she begs, "try to forgive yourself now, Sophia."

"I'll try, Mrs Oakley. I promise."

She lays her hand on my back. "I want you to know that my home is always open to you, Sophia. I want you to know that you are always welcome there."

I nod, my eyes were probably glowing. "Thank you."

"Oh, and lastly..." She starts to fish something out of the thick jacket she was wearing, and when she finally found whatever she was searching for, she gives it to me. "Daniel wanted me to give this to you. He has been working on this since the two of you started dating, so..." She chuckles.

I look down, seeing a piece of paper folded up so that it could fit in my palm.

"He really loved you, Sophia. More than you could ever know."

I slowly start to open the folded up piece of paper, feeling my eyes start to water as I started to read the letter Daniel has written to me.

I close the letter after I read it three times over again with shaky hands.

"You knew he wanted to propose to me?"

She winks at me. "Who do you think bought you the ring?" She then chuckles. "Men can never know what a woman truly wants. So, I helped him out a little."

"Mrs Oakley... Daniel proposed to me the night he died in that accident. I kissed him when I was supposed to drive."

"Like I said, Sophia, the accident was unavoidable either way." She says. "The car that hit you drove fifty miles over the speed limit. It lost control, and drove into your lane." She sighs, deeply. "It's a terrible shame that the two of you were on that same road that night, but my mother used to say that some things are just inevitable. It doesn't mean that I'm not devastated, though, no. I was shattered. I couldn't come out of my room for weeks. And I wouldn't have if I didn't have this little blessing." She starts to rub her belly through her thick, blue jacket. "I would like to think that Daniel sent him to me. To us."

"Congratulations, Mrs Oakley." My words came out as a faint whisper.

I was still trying to process the fact that I didn't cause the accident that took away Daniel's life. I have spent months living with the guilt because I looked away, only to find out that the accident would have been unavoidable anyways.

"I will always be sad for losing my son, but what makes me sadder is the fact that you have carried the guilt that wasn't yours to carry for all these months. Sophia... I'm going to say this one last time. The accident wasn't your fault. The accident was inevitable. I'm begging you now to stop blaming yourself. Daniel wouldn't want you to live your life like this. He loved you too much."

Snow crunches behind us.

I look over my shoulder again only to see River approaching us.

"I'm sorry." He apologizes. "I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"You didn't interrupt at all," Mrs Oakley says, "I was just leaving." She gives my shoulder a squeeze. "Please, Sophia. It's time to move on from this pain."

I nod slowly at her and watch as she walked away from us.

River sits down next to me, plopping himself down just like I did minutes ago, or was it hours? It felt like I've been here for a while, but my pants weren't soaked through yet so I wasn't here for that long yet.

"What are you doing here, River? How did you even know that I was here?" I ask him, frowning when he scratches the skin behind his neck.

"Your grandmother told me that you were here." He says.

"Okay..." I drawl, still frowning at him. "How did you find me?"

"Your father sent me the location. I drove here as fast as I could."

"It still doesn't tell me why you're here."

His face scrunches up like I had slapped him.

"I didn't mean it like that..." I quickly say. "I just wanted to know why you would drive all this way here."

"I want to support you like you have supported me in the last few months." He explains. "But please... act as if I'm not here. Talk to Daniel."

I shake my head at him. "I already got everything off my chest." I tell him. "I think I'm ready to leave the hurt behind now."

River smiles sadly at me. "You don't have to leave the hurt behind. It's okay to grieve."

I've been grieving for so long now, I don't even know how to feel something else other than hurt and guilt, but I managed to nod. "I think I am done grieving now." I say, turning my head slightly to look at him. "That woman that was just here... It was Daniel's mother." I explain to him. "And she just told me that the accident was never my fault. It was a drunk driver. The accident was unavoidable even if I did focus on the road in front of me."

"If that's the case, then why do you still look so sad?"

"I don't think the news has sunk in yet." I tell him honestly. "I have lived with nothing but pain, grief, guilt and regret for the past few months that I didn't think I could ever feel something else other than that ever again."

"And now?" River asks. "What are you feeling now? Do you feel relieved?"

"Daniel is still gone," I nod, slowly, "but it lessens the pain just a little bit to know that I wasn't the one who caused the accident after months of believing that I was the one who killed Daniel... and that the accident was unavoidable."

"It's okay to feel sad." He says. "You still lost him and that pain will linger forever."

"Yes, it will."