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He had never really like the word goodbye.
There was something altogether too final about it. But today he wished he had had the chance to say goodbye properly to his friends. They hang over you, those unspoken words.
He had tried to say goodbye multiple times by now.
But it’s hard to truly say goodbye when you didn’t watch them go. When all you experienced was the aftermath.
Too much distance.
It almost feels like they didn’t leave at all. That they’re just far away, and they’ll come back eventually after some exciting adventure, and tell him all about it.
The day was pale and dull, and it weighed down on him like a blanket. A thick, suffocating blanket. There was no breeze, no breath of air to clear his lungs and let him breathe again.
Goodbye.
Such a short word, such a simple word.
But when he went to utter it it caught in his throat and choked him.
---
The ground was draining him of all his body heat, leeching it away. He shivered involuntarily.
Goodbye.
He couldn’t say it.
---
Grey stones surrounded him like a sea of staring eyes, although it was the one that stood before him that had the most piercing gaze of all.
The kanji engravings had been carved with the utmost care. Elegant, like the strokes of a paintbrush.
Red flowers sat in a small glass vase on the lip of the stone’s base. A single splash of vibrance in an otherwise washed out landscape.
He’d said it before why couldn’t he do it one more time? Why couldn’t he say it to the people he had called friends?
A few years had passed. Surely this should be easier by now?
It wasn’t.
---
He continued to sit there, memorising every mark on that stone, every imperfection in the rock.
He had started to forget what their voices sounded like recently, and the realisation had sucker-punched him.
His memories were starting to blur, defocus. Images he could once see with perfect clarity had become smudges of colour piled on top of one another as the months went by.
The blue Saharan sky, the brown of a palm tree trunk, flashes of red, green, silver, gold and purple.
He desperately clutched at loose threads, trying to tie it all back together into a coherent narrative.
It was proving to be more and more difficult as time went on.
The only memories that stayed intact were the ones he wanted to forget the most.
Goodbye.
It was there, in his mind, seven letters quivering on the edge of his tongue.
He had to do this. He had to do this.
Holding on like this wasn’t like him. And besides, they wouldn’t want him to be miserable for the rest of his life.
His nails dug into his arms, leaving little red crescent marks.
It’s just one word.
It’s just one word.
He gritted his teeth. It was only one word, but what it encapsulated was altogether too much to say it lightly.
Too much.
His shoulders began to shake, his eyes starting to sting.
No.
No.
No.
“Jotaro.”
He flinched, heart suddenly pounding in his chest as he turned to look with wild eyes at the sudden arrival, jolted violently out of his wandering thoughts.
His grandfather smiled at him, but his smile lacked its usual lustre.
“You’re going to catch a cold if you stay out here for too long. You’re not even wearing a scarf.”
He didn’t say a word and turned his back in an attempt to hide his glistening eyes. He was being ridiculous. This was ridiculous.
There was the sound of footsteps on concrete as his grandfather walked towards him. A hand was placed on his shoulder and he flinched again.
For a few moments there was silence.
No leaves rustling, no birds chirping.
Just the quiet sound of breathing barely audible.
He cracked first.
“Does it ever stop hurting, Gramps?”
He was disgusted by how brittle his voice sounded but it was too late to take it back.
His grandfather said nothing.
Instead he crouched and sat down beside his grandson, and put an arm around his shoulder.
For a moment he considered resisting the gesture, bracing himself to pull away.
“It never stops, really.”
He froze. His grandfather took that as his cue to continue.
“But it gets easier. To bear with, at least. You’ll still cry sometimes, and wonder why it had to happen that way, but you’ll be able to live your life without being held back by the past eventually.
The first step is detangling yourself from it all, and I don’t think you’ve done that yet, Jotaro.”
He turned his head sharply.
“You’ve come out here once or twice a year, but you’ve never managed to say it, have you?”
He could feel himself starting to shut down.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Gramps.”
His grandfather snorted. “I think you do. You didn’t say it back in Egypt, either.”
This time he wrenched himself away. “And what business of yours is that?”
Silence.
A pat on the shoulder. “Just…try it.”
He whirled around to yell after his grandfather as he walked away but the words hitched in his throat. Joseph’s hands were shaking visibly, even from here.
He tsked under his breath.
And then a weary smile tugged at his lips.
“If you were here you’d be scolding me, wouldn’t you? For getting snappy with Gramps.”
His shoulders started to shake again. “Any of you would, really.”
Just try it?
He’d been trying.
But maybe his grandfather was right.
Maybe then he could let go, stop letting the past dictate his life, his thoughts. Maybe then he could move on.
He breathed in and exhaled shakily.
“I…”
Again. Again the words were trapped in his throat.
But they were simmering, bubbling up and up, and suddenly it all came tumbling out from his lips like a cascade.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I wish you were still here. But you’re not so I have to…I have to say…thank you and…g—-”
He gritted his teeth, eyes scrunching shut.
It’s just one word.
“…goodbye.”