#010414

Maybe he’s nostalgic – maybe he just needs to stop crying; either way, the snow crunches beneath his boots as he makes his way across what used to be a lush field of grass, before the winter hit. He think it’s probably more fitting this way anyhow – more poetic, if you will. As an artist, he can certainly appreciate that, despite the fact that he hates everything having to do with the cold, and the wind nipping about his cheeks is freezing the moisture to his skin. It’s okay. More will follow.

It’s not that he doesn’t miss her every second of every fucking day of his existence, it’s just that sometimes, sometimes, it hits him hard and fast and overwhelms him to the point of him not being able to breathe without it feeling like he’s dying; the knuckles of his right hand are protesting, he’s clutching about the flowers he holds so tightly. Her favourites. Caroline used to grow them with her, when it was warm, and he would watch them, flopped over in the grass like he couldn’t possibly be bothered with moving ever again for the rest of his entire life. Of course, that would last about five minutes before he would get restless, and pop up to grab the hose. Sometimes he would even be sneaky enough to get the jump on them, soaking them through and making them squeal partly out of surprise and partly because it's cold. Kai would laugh and he would laugh and he would laugh some more, and then they would (quite unfairly, if you ask him) gang up on him and, well, needless to say, that always ended in a bath on all accounts.

Every time he sees marigolds now he aches, aches from a place inside of him that he can’t precisely pinpoint, but still knows it goes deeper than anything ever has. They look like a spot of sunshine against the colorless backdrop of the winter, and his mind flits back to London briefly, even though he’s all the way in Manchester. He doesn’t want those worlds to touch ever again. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell Chance he was going to come here. Chance is London, and Manchester is death. Manchester is her.

The stone stands out for how new it looks, and when he stops in front of it, he can’t keep himself from leaning forward and brushing the dusting of white off of the top of it with one gloved hand. Then comes the front; a part of him almost want to leave the letters obscured, but a larger part of him is already scooping the snow from the grooves, slowly revealing what he tries to keep buried most of the time. He feels like he’s suspended in a single moment when the last bit is cleared off, and his eyelids flutter down, before pale blues are opened wide to face what he doesn’t want to.

Just her name brings him to his knees.

The moment he hits the ground, his head bows, the petals of the marigolds brushing against the marble. It’s been so long since he left her flowers – so long since anybody left her flowers. Months, right? Months. Just months since she passed. Maybe CC’s been around, and the evidence of it has just been covered up since – he’s not sure, but he wouldn’t blame her if she couldn’t. Wouldn’t blame her for not being strong enough, when he barely is himself. Oh, God, it hurts.

    Vivianne Elouise Lancaster.     January 04, 2006 - August 31, 2013.

"Happy birthday, my love.”

Kai’s there on his knees for a very long time, until his legs are practically numb with the cold, and he can’t even will the shivers that wrack his body away. The sun is steadily receding behind the blanket of clouds covering the sky, and he can feel it passing more than see it; feel it somewhere in his bones, at the very place that he can still feel Vivy. Tears fall and freeze, but he doesn’t seem to notice anymore, like they’re just something that's there, something that’s happening around him rather than to him – he wonders if she would be happy now, if she were still here. Without Caroline. Without him. Would things still be the same? Would he still be where he is today? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.

It takes a lot to stand and turn around, but when he does, he keeps himself from looking back. He keeps himself from picking out the one spot of vibrant orange and yellow in the sea of gray that twilight has cast, because he knows that if he does, he’ll curl up by her gravestone and go to find her.

DEI 010414 0.5″ I.D. Cool Tube – 36″

Cool-Tube is designed to protect wires, cables, fuel, brake lines and more from damaging heat sources. Manufactured from convoluted nylon 6 tubing and covered with an aluminized fiberglass fabric, Cool-Tube combines flexibility with maximum thermal protection and resists abrasions, chemicals, oil, condensation and other contaminates. Cool-Tube is pre-slit lengthwise for ease of installation…