I laid down the white daises next to his tombstone, sighing as I settled down on the grass. The rock was warm from the sun, and I let my eyes drift shut as bittersweet memories washed over me.

We were sixteen, and we laughed as we drove around in my car, music blaring, thinking we’d be infinite forever.

The grass had grown over the dirt that covered his coffin by this point, and I ran my fingers through it, pretending it was his hair. I wondered if he knew how much I missed him.

We were eighteen, and we were celebrating in his kitchen because we had gotten our college acceptance letters. We’d applied to the same college, of course. We had our wholes lives stretching out in front of us.

My eyes were dry, because I’d held his hand in mine and he’d made me promise I wouldn’t shed any more tears over him once he was gone.

We were nineteen, and we were high on the feeling of being alive, of being real. That, and the weed I’d bought.

I cracked open my eyelids, taking a look at the dark clouds that dotted the sky above me. The day was rather nice, despite the rain it promised later. A slight breeze stirred my hair, letting it dance over my shoulders.

We were twenty-one, and I held him as he sobbed in my arms, confused and broken and trying to fit together all of his pieces.

We were twenty-three, and with help from his parents, he had saved enough. I sat in the waiting room impatiently, and when he came back from top surgery, he the biggest smile on his face.

I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to stem the tears that had started to gather. I’d promised I wouldn’t cry, and I couldn't break that promise. I couldn’t.

We were twenty-five, and we were living in an apartment in the city. Life didn’t seem so eternal anymore, but we were happy, and even if money was a little tight, we made it work.

I turned around and rested my forehead where his name was inscribed, tears suddenly falling out of my eyes all at once. They sunk into the earth that held his bones.

We were twenty-six, and I was back in the waiting room, but that trip wouldn’t end with a smile. Neither would the next, or the next, or the next.

I dug my hands into the dirt, wishing I could feel close to him again, wishing he was back in my arms, where he’d be safe.

We were twenty-eight, and his hair was gone. His cheeks were sunk in and his eyes looked hollow. His skin was pale and waxy, and he was weak, far weaker than he ever should have been.

We were twenty-nine, and I was jobless, spending almost all of my hours at his hospital bed. The chemo wasn’t working.

I smiled at the tombstone, pain ripping through my chest, even if it was more bearable than before. Even if there was a circle in my ribcage that had felt empty for a long time.

I was thirty, and I spent a year in a depression so deep everyone thought that a piece of me had died when he had.

I am thirty-two, and even if I have learned to deal with my loss, I will never able to fully erase the pain, because to do that would be to erase the love as well.