There was nothing else for us to say after that. I had heard everything I had needed to hear my entire life. I left my violets at the bench and walked back to my car. I went back to my dorm and went on with my life. I went places. I saw people.

But I never saw him again.
I went back to that bench every weekend for a month, but he never showed.

That’s the thing about the dead. You can only hold onto them for so long, and then you have to accept the fact that they are gone.