((I'll start then.))
Elaine didn't know what to make of the kid. He turned to her and smiled. "Are you the girl?" he asked. She had no idea what he meant.
"The girl?"
"Who was in the car with them," he amended, motioning to the graves. Elaine bent down and stuck the yellow lilies in her mother's grave and the purple tulips in her father's. They didn't deserve to be without something pretty in the next life. She stood and just looked at the boy.
"I'm their daughter. Yeah, I was in the car with them. Why do you ask?" She mumbled. The kid put his hand on her shoulder.
"Then I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Don't be sorry unless you had something to do with it. Never say your sorry for no reason," Elaine scolded. Her uncle had taught her that. She loved her uncle, but he died of cancer when she was fifteen.
"But I did have something to do with it," the guy whispered again. His voice steadily grew louder until he was talking at normal volume with her. "You. You've haunted me since the day of that wreck. When my mother told me the little girl had survived but her parents hadn't, I was tortured. I went to the funeral. I rode down here on my bike every single day after it just to see if you'd be here. You were never there."
"I didn't get to go to the funeral. I was being fought over by my cousins." Elaine suddenly realized she was talking to a complete stranger. "Wait! Who the hell are you!?"
"I came here every day, now, eight years later, here you are. I have to tell you something," the kid continued. He wasn't answering her question and it was annoying Elaine.
"Tell me who the hell you are first!" Elaine snapped. He stopped and stared at her calmly. He glanced at the graves beside them and then back to her.
"My name is Gerard. When I was eleven I was almost hit by a car trying to catch my little brother who'd run into the street." He paused to make sure Elaine was listening. She'd calmed herself long enough to hear his story. "The car swerved and hit a light pole. The adults in the driver and passenger seat died. The ten year old in the back seat didn't." He watched as slow realization spread over Elaine's face. Still he continued, "I couldn't believe what I'd done. I had killed to people
and orphaned an girl in the process of trying to save my brother. Most people would walk away cold-heartedly. I couldn't." Gerard stopped and looked up at Elaine's wet face. "That's all I came to say, was I'm sorry."
Gerard hung his head and twiddled a buttercup between his thumb and index finger. Elaine didn't know what to say. Though she surprised herself. Amazingly enough, Elaine didn't hate him. She
didn't. How weird was that?
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