An Old Friend

We visited Cam today.

Just outside the gate, I found myself straightening my shirt out a little bit, trying to look a little less bedraggled. I had some flowers in my hand. I don't know why I thought these would be his. I dunno, it was just this subconscious thought in the back of my head. I dragged them around for hours, looking to find them out of season.

Joshua was next to me, he understood who we were talking about when we said about an old friend now.

I suppose he was steeling himself.

Joel was just there, present but not entirely there. I suppose that there was a double meaning, maybe this could stir something of Joel back up.

I also confiscated Joel's revolver. The way he kept messing with it got my nerves up. I don't trust this Joel, not as much as I probably should. He said himself that he wasn't my Joel, but he didn't complain when I asked to take the revolver from him. He just stared at me.

It just makes me feel a little sick.

So we walked inside.

I love cemeteries.

They are always so sobering, no matter what your day was like before, you could go to one and suddenly just everything would click into place. And considering the night before, it gave me some clarity.

We walked, and talked, just about nothing much in particular and then I saw it. I spotted it.

"Cameron Hudson

Devoted friend and husband."

Fuck. I'm crying already as I write this, not good.

It was kind of nice. The only plot for two men, allowing Jake and Cam to lie side by side for an eternity. Jake's part of the headstone was already being filled in. I couldn't really read it.

I sat down, holding the flowers like a a toddler with a blanket. This was the first time I'd been near him since the wedding.

I'm not ashamed to say I cried a little bit. The other two joined me, and we talked. Me and Joel, sharing funny stories about our time with the guy. All of those "Remember whens."

About how we were scared, I'd just lost my family, and then Cam just made the two of us so happy to be here, doing something that was utterly insane. We were surviving.

And then he died. It's still terrifyingly beyond me how something so alive can just die. But that was the moment I think I realised. "Holy shit. I can die."

Josh didn't say much, he was too busy looking at the gravestone. For the first time, I saw he was afraid. It wasn't a fear of Slendy thing. It was the same thing I felt. That realisation suddenly clicking.

I asked Joel to look after Josh, and I'd catch up. Neither of them knew Cam really. Well, Joel did, but he's not Joel...

Once I was alone, I placed the flowers down, the petals looking so perfect on the surface of his grave. They had his life. His brightness. His simple love of life.

"See you in whatever comes after, Cam."

I then turned to leave.

I'd spent so long looking for them, it made what they were, feel all the more right.

They were Sunflowers.