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“Did you know you were the first person ever give me flowers?” Tony turns with a startled movement. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There beside him stood Hannah. His friend from years ago, the girl that killed herself. It was a shock seeing her there beside him, looking alive, looking real enough to touch. So bizarre seeing her, but worse was that he wasn't even reacting to it. He wasn't freaking out, chanting something about her being dead or not being real. it was just the surprise of turning in the mall and casually bumping into an old friend, surprised that you didn't really recognize them, until you do. Seeing hannah was nothing like that though, because even after all these years she still looked the same as she had when they were teenagers. Tony didn’t know why he had expected to see her older, see her at if she had grown into an adult. He hadn’t expected to see her at all, he didn’t believe his own eyes. Yet he knew it was real. To real to ignore.
“I always did enjoy getting flowers from you, more than most.” She turns and smiles at him it is sweet and genuine. She looks happy, which is a bit disputing, even in it is a good thing.
“Hey Tony.” She greets him, eyes glinting. He can’t help but be pulled back in the that old pattern of their greetings.
“Hello Hannah.”
“They are nice.” She gestures to her grave were the bright orange flowers lies. “What kind are they, I don’t believe that I have gotten those kinds before.”
“It’s Marigold.”
“What do they mean?” she asks as she bends down to touch them. Tony swears that he sees the pedals move under her fingers.
“Is complicated.” He doesn’t meet her eyes as she looks up at him with an open and curious expression.
“I looked up the last flowers you got me; I don’t know if you remember them.” Hannah takes Tony’s silence as not remembering the them.
“I don’t know if it was the intention to give me flowers that meant friendship, but they gave me hope.” She laughs a bit as she turns back to the flowers on her grave
long overgrown with grass. “Back then I thought you meant them as don’t give up on love, I will be there for you. You gave me hope.”
“It’s Flor de Muerto” his voice is barely audible when he speaks them.
“Flower of the dead. It’s fitting.” She pauses to bend further down and smell them “I like them more than any of all the roses I still get each year on my death day.” She gets up, knees showing wet patches of green grass stains. It so surreal that Tony can’t comprehend that he is in fact seeing her. She goes and sits on the bench where Tony put his back and the silver kantine with hot chocolate.
“What have you here?” Hannah says as investigates the bottle of hot sweetness. She doesn’t pick it up.
Tony steps closer, he doesn’t know what to do with himself, so he ends up just sitting down on the bench. It feels like a picnic, which is weird as fuck because here he sits a grown man with a teenage girl pouring them hot chocolate in the paper cups. It is so surreal that he can't help but laugh and shake his head at the same time. It seems so wrong, but feels so right and true. Tony don't know why he isn’t more freaked out by seeing the ghost of a girl he knew years back. It must be the fact that he was raised as mexican catholic. Learned from early age that death is a part of the human circle of life, the acceptance of that fact was probably the reason why he didn't fear the dead. Hannah picks up the cup. Tony can't help but wonder how it is possible. He is midt sip, when she speaks again.
“It’s funny isn’t it? Nobody gave much thought to me when I was alive, but even years after I’m dead they still send me flowers.”
“I think people gave you thought you were just to stuck op to see it.” Tony doesn't know where that comes from or why he suddenly feels this explosive anger spread in his body. Anger at Hannah for killing herself, something he had never felt before. He had been sad and confused but never angry.
He had always tried to tell himself that it had been her choice, that it was okay that she had made it. But sitting here in front of the girl he knew, not a day older, he feels like he knows she could have grown into an incredible woman that could do whatever she wanted. Hannah had robbed the world of that woman, had ruined her own shot at life before it had even begun.
“Your probably right.” She shrugs her shoulders, her gentle smile not leaving her face.
“I’m sorry”
“You have all the right to be angry, as I remember it you only grow angry if it's something you care about. You cared about me, that I will never forget.”
Tony doesn't want to be angry, but he is. He is hurt and grieving, with no idea of where those feelings suddenly comes from. He doesn't speak, just try to drown his anger with chocolate. Tony fears that if he were to speak again there would only be hurtful words coming from him. She might be the same girl not grown a day older, but he is different, not as moral or good as he was as when she knew him. Her loss had shaped a lot of people’s lives, some had been ruined, some lost, but others safed. Her story might have created awareness about suicide and lanced a lot of movements to prevent them, it was all good.
Her actions he had helped the world see a problem, but at what consequence? She had been the catalyst that had changed him. Made him harder, rougher more dangerous. Her actions had set events in play, things that would never be the same again. Yet sitting here drinking her drink he feels that maybe some things in him never did change. A hope that somethings would always stay the same no matter what life threw at them.
With a bright smile he digs in the pack and pulls out a container. His fingers stick to the coolness of it. He find the spoons in the bag. He has absolutely no idea why there is two. He didn't pack two, or maybe he did. Just forgetting he had already packed one. Fate is a strange mistress. He opens the lit, stiks both spoons in it and offers it to Hannah that has watched him with a child like glee.
“Offerings to me, you shouldn’t have. You really are the best date ever.” She says before she dig in the offered ice cream.
The look of pure enjoyment on her face dos something to him. The heaviness in his stomach only grows. Not what he expected from this gestur.
“I’m a bit disappointed that it took you this long to come visit me.”
“I have been here with Clay.”
“That was years ago”
“I have not been around much.”
“That's not much of an excuse not to stay in touch with one of your rare friends.”
“Screw you.” his word are soft, but at some level he means them. “friendship is a two way street Hannah.” He gives her a stern look.
“I know, so how are you doing Tony my friend?”
“Raising my sister. Working to send my family money”
“What do you mean?” The look on her face is filled with confusion and something more Tony doesn't really recognize.
“You have no idea what your actions cost, do you?” He was angry again, but now he feels more disappointed. Disappointed in himself, for deep down blaming Hannah for what happened after her death.
“What did I do?” She is as always quick to grow definitive. But not enough for her to stop eating the ice cream.
“Nothing” He knows his words to be a lie as soon as he says them. Because he can't help but blame her, he need to blame her or who else is there to blame, but himself.
“Is something wrong?” She asks as she studies him with wise eyes. Hannah has changed, Tony notices. He can't quite put a finger on it, but she isn’t the same. Maybe it's just him that has changed, changed so much that he sees her different. Maybe she was right about nobody seeing her when she was alive.
“No, nothing is wrong.” He says.
“Since when have you become such a liar?”
“Since I had to keep the secret of why a friend of mine killed herself.” The words are meant to sting her, hurt her just for hurting her.
“Not gonna work on me now, can't hurt someone that is already dead.” She smiles and stuffs the Ice in her mouth.
“This is the best thing ever! That is probably the thing I miss the most about being alive. Food.” They don't talk for a bit. Just sit and hear the wind in the trees, feel the sun baking on their skin.
“I miss the sun too. This is nice.”
“Do you miss any people?”
“Yeah, loads. But I’m happy here.” Tony only hums in response and he can’t help but twirl his ring with his thumb.
“Do tell, who is the lucky guy?”
“What guy?” She just gives him a disappointed look with a raised eyebrow, seeing right through his shit.
”The ring”
“Oh yeah.”
“Do I know him?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me who it is. Please I need some good news.”
“Well it isn’t really a huge deal.”
“Why wont you tell me?”
“It just, I don't know if it's gonna work out.”
“Don't tell me you married Ryan!” the horror in her voice was comical.
“No of course not.” Tony couldn’t help but laugh, it might have been a little more nervous then he was going for.
“Then tell me!” She shoves at him. He felt her puch him, it might not have been so hard, but the punch didn't feel right, didn't feel real. It was more of what a memory feels like. She couldn't just be a fig of his imagination. “Maybe I can give you some advice for a change.”
“Clay.”
”What about Clay.” She looks confused for a second before she gets it, the realization is clear on her face. that was something she could never hide, her emotions was always on her face. Maybe that was the reason she hid from the world? “Oh My Good what?! You married Helmet! Tell me everything!”
“Well it was more like he married me. He had a really hard time after you, I helped him a lot with everything and after Bryces murder...”
“Wait what?!” Tony forgets she doesn't know, so he give her a short sum up.
“Bryce was found murdered about a year after you.”
“I hated him, but no one deserve that.”
Tony went quiet in thought as he started fidgeting with the simple goldban again.
“Oh!” Hannah exclaimed as if suddenly realizing something important. Tony didn't look at her. “Why didn't you tell me?! Clay was the one you loved that didn't love you back.” It should have been a question but wasn’t. Hannah had always seen right through him.
“So how is married life? His he still as obvious and geegy?”
“Can we not talk about this?”
“Why? it's the best topic ever!” she seemed to glow with glee. Happy to talk about something new and at the sametime something they both cared about.
“Because I fucked up real bad, Hannah.”
“Maybe if you tell me it will feel better.” she laid her hand on his, showing her support. The touch lingered and in the time her hand was on his, he didn't really feel the hand he saw, but only a memory like the perfume hanging in the air around her.
“Maybe if you told me about everything it would have helped!” He pulls his hand away sharply and jumps from the seat on the bench. Now he was truly furious at her, just that one sentence broke all his controle, broke all that carefully constructed facade. He hurt her, it was obvious even if she said the dead can’t be be hurt. He wanted answers to questions. He wanted a reason, damned.
"Why was my name on that ship of paper your mom found in your closet?" when words flew out of him. He hadn't meant to ask them. but anger sometimes makes fools out of any man.
"What paper?" she looks confused for a moment before realizing what Tony means. "oh that paper. I needed to put things together."
"Then why wasn't I on the tapes?"
"Why should you be?"
"Because I deserved it Hannah. I broke your heart that night under the stars." He truly believe it. Tony had always been glad that he wasn't on the tapes, but it had always been like he was just waiting for people to find out about him and his role in her death. That it was his fault, that he had been the once sending her on her way. that he had been her catalysator to bad stuff happening to her.
"Is that what you think? You didn't break my heart, Tony. You showed me what it was to love and be loved." she rose from the bench herself and stepped closer to him as she spoke.
"But..." His words wasn’t coming out.
"It wasn't your fault Antonio, you hear me. I was my choice, my decision and my fault." It was like a dam broke inside Tony and he just started something he hadn’t done in a long time. He was crying every feeling of sadness, blame and great out with each and every single tear.
"I'm sorry you had to carry that with you for all those years." Stepped closer and pulled his weeping face to her chest cradling him. “I’m sorry, you had to see me like that. I’m so sorry Tony. Can you forgive me?” She too was crying her ghost tears. They stood there for moment just holding on to the other, Tony not caring that she felt wrong, to cold and with to little substance to really hold onto. But he didn’t care, because he had missed his friend and letting her go would just be wrong.
”You have to let me go.”
“Wha?”
“The day is nearly over, I can’t stay any longer.” he let her go physically. “I don't think I can ever let you go Hannah.”
“Take care of Clay, he is one of the good ones.” she leans in and kisses his cheek, as Tony opens his eyes again she is gone. Just like when she had appeared.
“I will.” he takes a step back and pacs his back in the soft beginning twilight. He stops one last time and looks back at her grave.
“I forgive you, but I will never forget.” He turns and walk away. He leaves his anger and his guild at the cemetery as he drives away feeling lighter, like he for the first time can breath since Hannah bestowed the most important task in her life, in her death on him.