The sky was turning a pinky yellow by the time Jimmy had worked out take Ellen so the two of them could talk without fear of interruption.

After yet another day of awkward silences when the kids weren’t around to distract, he’d finally asked her during nap time if they could talk about Gabby and everything else that before, the two of them had left firmly in the past. He’d chosen the park, where he usually came after he visited Gabby at the graveyard. He would sit and stare at the water in the pond, wondering if there was something more beyond its watery depths- something better at the bottom.

He liked the park. He would look weird if he just walked into the playground and pretended that he was a child by playing on all the equipment, so instead he chose to walk around and stare at other people. He liked to analyse people- characters of reality he would always call them. They were real, but they could all be someone else’s story- and barely in his. He liked to imagine what they were thinking when they walked past him, and where they were going off to.

People-spotting.

“So why the park, Jimmy?” Ellen asked as he sat down on his normal bench, the inky blue waters staring back up at him.

She hadn’t been reluctant to come with him, but he figured she had been thinking more of going to his home, or to a coffee shop somewhere, rather than the park in the early autumn. It was unseasonably cold, and before he could speak, a strange breeze ran through the air, stopping him for a moment. Could it be a spirit, or an early sign of winter? He was inclined to believe both.
“This is where I come to think. And…I need to think a lot about what I’ve been keeping from you after all these years” Jimmy replied without looking up from the water.

“Is it about Gabriella?”
“Yeah. And…why I kind of disappeared from your lives”

It still hurt to talk about Gabby, but it hurt more when he thought of how badly he’d betrayed her family. When they needed him the most he had run away to wallow in his own misery, forgetting about the people who had been so kind to him.

“After Gabby and I got married, I was thrown out of my home. My parents thought I was throwing my life away and that I had no plan for the future. I told them that I didn’t care about the distant future; the only one I could think of was the death tag that Gabby had wrapped around her neck. One year wasn’t nearly enough time to show her everything life had to offer” Jimmy started, barely looking up from the pond to make eye contact with the other person.

“I moved in with your family, I made money so your brother wouldn’t have to make money on his own- seeing as your Dad and Mom couldn’t work. I treated them as though they were my own family, and in return, they let me fall in love Gabriella. But…after she died, and you left the hospital, I stayed the whole night with her. I wrote her a letter, but I never gave it to her. Instead I read it out to her, holding her hand as it got colder in mine. I must’ve fallen asleep because when I woke up, she was gone. They’d taken her away”

“That night, when I went to walk back into her house, I saw your mother crying. And I realised it wasn’t my place to stay with you anymore. I couldn’t help you- I could only make things worse. So…I called up Brian and asked if I could stay in his apartment for a while, until I got back on my feet. I didn’t even go to the funeral. I didn’t think it would be right”

Jimmy hadn’t planned on crying during his speech, but as he closed his eyes, he felt two small tears track down his cheeks, which he wiped away furiously. He thought of what Matt had told him in the prison, to finally move on even though it hurt to do so, but…he would never stop loving her. It was hard to fall out of love when you were so deep in it.

“Jimmy…we never would’ve turned you away. Mom, she told about the day Gabby met you. After you disappeared. She said, she came home smiling for the first time in weeks, told us that she’d made a new friend, a boy. That he didn’t care that she was sick, and he didn’t care that she was different. And that’s why we liked you Jimmy. Because you loved Gabby for who she was, not who she appeared to be” Ellen said softly, putting her hand on his shoulder.

He could see her reflection in the water below him, and just by staring at the pond, he realised he wasn’t so alone in this. After Gabby died, he’d finally come to terms that everybody he cared for left him, and that he was never going to have anyone in this world to stay with him. That’s why he ran away from people, and that’s why he didn’t like to trust them. Because eventually…they were going to leave him.

“I did. But I was scared, and I still am. I never forget her. I still visit her every Sunday, go to her grave and talk to her like she’s still alive and she’s in the kitchen when I come home from work. She’s everywhere- and I can’t forget her. Not for one second of the day” Jimmy whispered, looking up from the water and straight into Ellen’s eyes.

She had the same ones as her sisters- a beautiful honey colour that made him blink twice whenever he saw them, like he was looking at something he couldn’t quite believe was real. And for a moment, he almost believed that sat right in front of him was Gabby, his beautiful wife who had left the earth and left him behind.

“Don’t be scared Jimmy. Even the biggest people are afraid of the smallest things. All we have to do is find someone to help us get better” Ellen said as he stared at her.

And without even thinking, he leaned forward and pressed their lips together, in such a soft kiss, it reminded him of the ones he used to share with his beloved.
He expected her to slap him, get up and walk away, he wondered if she’d ask him what the hell he was playing at and then push him into the pond and run off, terrified of the person her older sister had once been married to.

But never did he expect for her to put her hands on his legs and kiss right back like nothing in the past had ever happened.