I’m not sure if his eyes were open when he died.  It’s possible they were, he was hit full on, while he was running.  But really, it doesn’t matter if his eyes were closed or if they were open.  He never needed to be looking at me to love me.  He loved me with every fibre of his being, and I loved him the same, with the purity of two happy children looking to the sunrise together.

I went to look at the place where it happened.  After the body had been moved I didn’t bother to look, and I wanted to have a nice, long stare.  So I opened the front door, stepped outside, and walked to it.

There’s a streetlamp on our street, old and worn and yellow-orange.  I walked under it and saw my shadow move, changing and promising more change as it did, while I stayed the same, my gait, my clothes, my heartbeat.

Even the most powerful streetlamp has limits though.  And sure enough I found a huge splatter of blood on the pavement, nearly out of the light’s furthest reach.  I kneeled beside it, noticed it was still wet.  And as much as I looked at it, as much as I forced myself to look at it, it didn’t sink in yet.  I kept expecting the sound of tip-tip-tip, listen to him walk over to me and stare at me, ask me what I was looking at.  But he didn’t.  And I felt a little lost, looking at the ghastly, shiny red smear.  I was looking at the remnants of my heart, there.  It wasn’t his blood on the ground, it was mine.

Oh, how I wish it had been mine.

-

I went to see it again.  It seems likely that I’ll be checking up on it, though I don’t know why.  It’s just blood, right?

And before you ask, yes, it was still there.

The blood seems to have started drying out, turning that muddy brown color that’s so pretty against the gray pavement.  I think I hate myself a little for thinking anything about this could hold anything positive, though, so I won’t be repeating that thought.

It’s starting to sink in, just a tad.  I stared at the blood for a long, long time, telling myself over and over and over what it was.  I wonder what he saw in his last moments.  Trauma to the head doesn’t leave any room for last moments, does it? I’m not sure.

If it did, I know how it would have gone.  Probably mom screaming for my dad.  Dad running to get me.  The guy who hit him sitting over him, probably apologizing and crying.  I hope he was there to hear me cry, although I’m sure he knows he’ll be missed either way.  I really hope he was there to hear me say I loved him.  Times like this I really wish I believed in a long afterlife, where we can meet again and spend all of eternity watching movies together and talking.

The stars, as beautiful as they are, can’t be seen in the light of the streetlamp.  It takes some time of stepping out of it and letting your eyes adjust to see them.  But when I turned away and began to walk home, the orange heat and light buzzing at my back, I almost felt like I was abandoning him.  I looked over my shoulder, the way I would when I walked and he wouldn’t follow.  He wasn’t following.  And a little part of me stayed right there, bowed over his blood in the light of the streetlamp, where not even the heavens can be seen.