Logan and I liked a lot of the same things, like keeping fit, which was why we started exercising together. Logan was a personal trainer at a small but posh and expensive gym so he’d also helped me plan an exercise regime to stay in shape.
“Do you want to go over?” I asked. Logan didn’t come often. He always said he hated the thought of Jace being stuck underground, cold and motionless. I used to come all the time but now it was only a couple times a month. I loved Jace but he was gone, and I had a chance at a new life. It wasn’t the one I thought I would have but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be great.
A shallow crease formed between his eyebrows as he frowned slightly, thinking about it. The few times he’d been here I was with him. “Alright,” he responded. It took him a minute to move. I stood still, knowing he should be the one to make the first move if he really wanted to. He walked slowly.
“Logan, if you really don’t want to…”
“No, it’s fine,” he replied, stopping about three feet from the grave.
“Hi, Jace,” I said, sitting down and pulling a stray weed from the ground above him.
It had been just over three years since he went on a trip with his college class to London to look at architecture. It was just over three years that the bomb went off and killed him, his whole class and fifty-four other people.
The whole thing was senseless. A hate group of two, brothers Richard and Alexander Gregson, that didn’t like a Mosque being built so they bombed it. They killed more British people than anyone else. No one won in terrorism. There was only ever loss.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Logan frowning. “Do you want to leave?” I asked. I didn’t want him to be here if he was uncomfortable. Just because Jace was here didn’t mean this was the only place to be close to him.
Logan shook his head and lowered himself to the floor. He grabbed my hand and held it in a death grip. “I hate this. He should be upstairs continuing to waste his life on his Xbox.”
I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, he loved that stupid thing.” Jace was a gamer. He could play for hours, easily all day if I wasn’t over. I never understood how anyone could do that. It was so flat and dull. I preferred to be outside with the natural smells, sounds and all things three-dimensional.
“He loved you more.”
“You think? I mean, he did buy it more accessories than me,” I joked, bumping my shoulder against his.
Logan chuckled and shook his head. His deep topaz eyes lit up when he laughed. “He pissed so much money away on it. I think he had a delivery every week of some new part or game.” He shook his head. “I miss the fucking idiot.”
“Me too.”
“You’re okay, though?” he asked.
“I really am now. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, it makes you human. It happens, right?”
“Death?”
He nodded. “Can’t escape it and if you’re the one left behind you have to carry on.”
“Yeah.” It was true. The world didn’t stop. I wanted it to for so long and with every new day I wanted to scream, but now I looked forward to it. I wanted to get up and achieve something, and I wanted to be happy again. “Wow, this is depressing.”
“It is. Wanna carry on?” he asked, tapping his fingers against his knee, impatient and eager to get away.
I stood up and it came as no surprise when he jumped to his feet. “Come on, I’ll give you a head start so you have a chance this time,” I teased.
“Oh you think I need a head start, Miss I need to rest for a minute,” he said in what was supposed to be my voice.
“Firstly, I don’t sound like that. Secondly, I needed to stop once. One time, Logan, and that was ages ago.”
“It was four years ago,” he said and shrugged.
I stared at him. “That you remember, but your mum’s birthday…”
“Okay,” he shouted loudly, holding his hands up. “I get that enough from her. In my defence, I knew the date it was just the month I got mixed up. They both begin with a J.”
“Good argument,” I said sarcastically.
“You wanna stay here and argue some more or can we move it along?”
“We can move it along.”
“Good, move your tiny arse then!”
Whoa. “Tiny?”
“No, it’s not tiny, tiny. Not big either. I’m not saying it’s big at all, I swear,” he rambled, looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights. I knew exactly what he meant but I really enjoyed making him squirm. He swung his arm around my neck as I started laughing. “Wasn’t funny, loser,” he whispered in my ear, trying not to laugh himself.
“Yes, it was. Admit it.” I pushed him away, still laughing, blew Jace a kiss and ran off towards his house. I didn’t look back.
***