Love you, love you, love you, yes and always . . . and no, you didn't know, you didn't know, you didn't know.

–Anne Rice, Memnoch the Devil

You Didn't Know

The cold, winter air whips fiercely against a lone woman. Her eyes are sad and her manner defeated. This is a woman who has seen much suffering, much anguish, much pain in her life. She's here now to come to terms with some of that pain. She's come back to tell him exactly how she felt . . . no feels.

She reaches him, sits down on the ground next to him and holds her hand up. "Don't try and interrupt me. I came with a lot of things to say and dammit you're going to listen to every word I say." She smiles bitterly, "Not that you have much of a choice."

Sighing heavily, she looks over at him. His appearance is cold and granite. "I guess it's time for me to come to terms with . . . well everything. I still remember the first time I met you. You had just moved in across the street. The little genius with the big head." A flash of anger momentarily disrupts the despair, "You always had to one up me; I'd get an A, you'd get an A+. The harder I tried, the harder it became for me to accept that no matter how hard I worked, you'd always be better. And soon, I began to hate you."

Emerald orbs begin glistening with unshed tears, "To risk sounding cliched, the line between hate and love is a thin one, non-existent even. And one day, I found that I had crossed the line."

She looks over at him again; he is stone faced and hasn't moved a muscle. She wishes now she hadn't waited so long to tell him. The tears threaten to spill from those green lakes of suffering.

They sit together in silence until she can compose herself. She is grateful yet angry for it. She wishes that just one word would be uttered from his lips, but it's her fault for his silence. She waited too long.

"I guess I can't be mad for your silence, huh? I did ask for it." She takes a huge gulping breath before continuing, "Anyway. One day, I found to my surprise that I had fallen in love with you. But no matter how brave I was when we were facing aliens or an evil genius, I could never be brave enough to admit to you how I felt.." A solitary tear escapes from those penetrating emerald depths and meanders gently down a pale cheek, "That's right, Jimmy. I, Cindy Vortex, am a coward. It was just . . . we spent so much time arguing that I convinced myself that even when we seemed to be friends, I had been so cruel to you in the past that I was extremely lucky that you were willing to be my friend. And I would rather die than risk the pain of rejection and the awkwardness in our friendship that my declaration of love would bring. That pain of knowing you would never . . . could never feel the same towards me caused me to keep it inside. I likened it to a disease and kept telling myself that I would 'get better'." Another tear drops, followed closely by another and before she even realizes it, she's crying, "You don't know how much it hurt me, not telling. But I convinced myself it would hurt more when you rejected me. Because in my mind I wasn't ever good enough to deserve your love. When I was nice to you, I wasn't nice enough. When I tried to look my best, I still wasn't pretty enough. So I convinced myself that I was so below what you deserved that it would be cruel to tell you that such a lowly creature felt bold enough to love someone who could never love her."

She wipes her tear-stained face, "I'm sorry, Jimmy. I'm sorry I never gave us a chance. I'm sorry that even when we were going off to college and I didn't think I'd ever see you again, I still wasn't brave enough to admit my feelings. But most of all," she choked back a sob, "most of all, I'm sorry for waiting so long to tell you."

She stands up and starts to leave, but changes her mind. Kneeling in front of him, she gingerly kissed his cold forehead.

Straightening herself up, she takes one final look at his resting place. The words are read one final time before she walks away. If only she hadn't waited too long.

James Isaac Neutron

March 22, 1994 - January 17, 2016

Beloved son, friend

and genius

He left us too soon.