I stood staring at the grave, the grave that had been placed there so long ago now it seemed. It really had only been a year. A year since I heard him say goodbye. Since I was first too late. A year since my best friend had left me to face the world alone again. I still don't know exactly why he did it. He and I both knew- know- that he was never a fake. He was simply that clever, clever enough to figure everything out. So why couldn't he have figured this problem out?
I know he ran. That didn't help his case. But I would have testified in his defense. I know plenty of other people who would have done the same. Flowers came day after day to 221B Baker Street. I couldn't leave, even though every moment I spent in that damn place made me feel worse. I couldn't leave poor Mrs. Hudson alone, but that was only part of it. I didn't want to be alone either. Those flowers were from the people that thought they cared, but I knew the truth. It was a formality. Only Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft and I really cared that he was gone, never to return. It didn't seem possible.
I think we all still expected him to rush in the room, covered in blood and carrying on about how boring his life was. We thought he would notice the new hat that someone had sent and complain that it was the stupidest thing in the world. We assumed he would be shooting at the wall, simply because he could. Even after a year, the three of us couldn't understand. Mycroft had to move on. He was too high in the world to seem like he cared that his traitorous brother had committed suicide, slandering the family name. Too many people relied on him so he simply moved forward. But I know it hurt him. Don't things like this always hurt people?
Mrs. Hudson begged me to stay. She said that selling the flat would destroy her, as no one but him and I had ever stayed there. She refused to move on because she wasn't Mycroft. She didn't need to. So I stayed, both for her and for me. She continued to twitter about, staying strong because she was one of those little old ladies that had more strength than most twenty year old men. But just like Mycroft, I knew it hurt her. I knew she was hiding it.
Of the three of us, I'm the worst. I was there, I could have stopped him. I know I could have. I watched as he fell to his end. I heard his last words. "That's what people do, right? Leave a note?" The phone call had been his note, and he had valued me enough to let me be the one to hear it. But he didn't imagine what it could do to me. It broke me. His final words broke me. "Goodbye John." I will replay those words in my head until the day I die.
SO here I am, one year later. I'm staring down at the grave of my best friend. No one else came, because though Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft care, they don't care as much as me. They weren't there, they don't know. But I do, so I'm here. "I hope you are listening, and even if you aren't I'm telling you anyway. A year has passed and I still can't believe what you did. How could you do this to me? Leave us behind, leave all the challenges to people who simply can't do them? I know you were never a fake, or a fraud or a lie. You were my best friend, the man that gave me a reason to live again. But now you are gone."
As I moved to leave, my phone buzzed in my pocket. What a moment spoiler. I looked at the text and my heart stopped. One word. 'Wrong'. But that wasn't what made me stop. It was the name of the person who sent the text. I never removed that number from my phone. Sherlock Holmes.
