March 20th. The first day of spring.
It had to be the first day of spring, didn't it?
Grey polished marble. A single name engraved in the center: Rapunzel Corona.
A year ago today. It had only taken a second. Jack had never driven faster in his entire life. Four in the morning. They had to pry her body out of her crunched-up Toyota. The car looked like a broken child's toy. So did her body. The paramedics said she was dead by the time they got her out. That she probably died on impact. Rain was falling in the dim golden light of the street lamps. Jack could still see the tire marks on the road from where the other car swerved.
A year ago today. Three hundred and sixty-five nights without Rapunzel. Her presence was replaced with nightmares of Merida's frantic phone call. He shudders because no matter how hard he tries, he still pictures the way her face must have looked seconds before the collision. Contorted with fear, green eyes open wide and panicked. She had nobody with her when it happened. She died alone. What was going through her head when it happened? What was the last image etched into her mind before everything stopped?
"Don't ask yourself those kinds of questions, Jack." Merida has said three hundred and sixty-five times.
"No matter what the answer is…it won't bring her back." He had seen Hiccup break like an egg when he got out of his car that night. Black raincoat wrapped around him, hair pasted to his forehead from the rain. They were all so small that night. Little particles swimming in this horrific storm.
Merida and Hiccup don't question why Jack never drives in the rain. Three pairs of dark blue rain boots, completely worn-through. He walks where he needs to when it rains. Three hundred and sixty-five head colds, side effects of nausea, heartbreak, and loss of a life.
It wasn't raining today. Seventy-two degrees and sunny. Jack didn't know if he should be happy because it reminded him of Rapunzel or depressed because it reminded him of Rapunzel. Sunlight filtered through the green leaves of the maple tree above them. The three of them were the only people in the cemetery. It seemed so lonely, all these little tombs.
"Does anyone want to say anything?" Merida choked after a long period of silence. Merida was carrying one of the lanterns Rapunzel had made two summers ago. Dozens of them sat in a box in Merida's attic. None of them could bear to look at them right now. Hiccup had brought several small candles. Jack was clutching a bouquet of multi-colored flowers.
"Yeah, I'll go." Hiccup raised a hand half-heartedly, and placed the little white candles around the grave. He took a deep breath to steady himself, but Jack could see the shaking in his chest. "It's been a year since you left, Punz… I… It doesn't really feel real. I keep expecting to walk outside and see you picking flowers or something. We miss you a lot—" His voice broke, and Jack's hand flew to his friend's shoulder. He looked past Hiccup to see Merida with a hand clamped over her mouth, blue eyes swimming with tears. Another deep breath. A more visible shaking as his chest heaved. He tried again. "And... thank you for what you've done for me, for all of us. You had a way of changing the people who crossed your path in the best possible way. You've changed so many lives, you'll never know how much you've done. I love you, Punz."
Merida placed the paper lantern at the head of the marble stone. "We were all impacted when you left us, Punzie…" Jack had never heard Merida's breath stagger like this before. Her throat was tight when she spoke. "I still remember running through the rain with you…and baking gingerbread cookies, and making daisy chains, and braiding each other's hair, a—"
Sharp quick breaths interrupted her speech. Her hand clamped tightly over her mouth again. She sobbed into her palm while Hiccup tried to support her. Jack pictured Rapunzel's long blonde hair running over his fingertips. He realized how easily that broke Merida when images of Rapunzel rip through him. Simple tasks – tucking hair behind her ear, half-lidded eyes glancing down when she was embarrassed, eyebrows knit together when thinking, head lolling to the side as she nodded off to sleep. She was like a masterpiece that Jack thought he could almost touch. Almost. It shakes him to think that someone so tangible isn't here anymore.
Jack scattered the flowers over Rapunzel's grave. Tulips and orchids and daisies and dahlias and lilac and lilies and poppies and chrysanthemums. A floral rainbow painted across grey marble. A lump caught in Jack's throat. Hiccup's hand found his. It was strange how just gripping someone's hand brought such gravity. The three of them were multi-colored balloons finding their way back to the ground. Shattered pixels of glass smaller than grains of sand, stabbing into the feet of barefooted innocent. If the world was a balloon, it has been popped by now. If Rapunzel were a vase, they would be sweeping up the broken pieces.
The flowers from the vase have found a home in the grass beside the grey marble grave. Hands can only hold so much, especially when the world is falling out of them.
But a single ray of sunshine casts its light on the bouquet of flowers scattered in this one small spot.
In three hundred and sixty-five days, Jack has learned not to believe in much. But in that instant. He could swear in the blowing of the wind he could hear Rapunzel's voice.
"Out of the end there can only grow new life."