They stand around her with complacent smiles, formed in strained sympathy. She is surrounded by those who will never understand, and do not want to. As they huddle together in their eager commiseration she finds an escape, striking off towards town and towards the bridge.
She feels better when she finally arrives at the site, as if a hand had been around her neck had suddenly been removed. The cheap suits and wilting flowers have been replaced with the crashing waves and groans of the bridge beneath her. There is no sympathy here at this wooden monument; no sad faces, save for her own. No judgment of his choice. No muttered words of disgrace and tragedy.
They have all told her not to come here, they said it wasn't healthy. But this is the only place she can still feel him. She couldn't feel him as he lay in the casket, his face so unnaturally pale. She couldn't feel him beneath the cold marble of this headstone. But here, standing with her face towards the grey waters that he chose to loose himself to, she can feel him. His whispers are the cool wind and his mummers the gurgle of the water as it flows across the rocks below. If she shuts her eyes she can almost feel him standing next to her, waiting.
The sun has begun its journey down to its western resting place, turning the dark river a brilliant collage of reds, pinks and yellows. The trees along the shore match the fiery hues. They have lost the life that once turned their leaves vibrant shades of green. They have begun to curl and fall.
Maybe that's what happened to him, maybe he lost the color in his life. Perhaps it had all become a photograph in shades of grey and black. Maybe he leapt into the colors of the river, hoping to find life through death.
She can only guess at what compelled him to leave.
She should have come back sooner...she should have never left.
No. His choice had nothing to do with her. Even if she had been standing on the rough wooden ledge next to him he would have jumped. He would have looked her in the eyes and asked her forgiveness as he stepped forward, into the one place she couldn't follow. He would have let her watch his body twist as it fell, finally smashing into the oblivion below. He would have believed her to be strong enough to witness his final work of art.
Her vision blurs with hot, heavy tears. I miss you, she weeps.
She wishes that she could be angry, that she could beg him to return. But the anger would taste of lies, and to ask him to stay would be to deny him his last sense of freedom. To ask him to stay would be to ask him to suffer. She cannot do so. Will not do so. She can only mourn him for a time. She can only carry the fragments of him that remain in her heart.
She can only remember.
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