The wind brushed past him, whisking leaves into the air and past his face. His cold, harden, pale face looked forward, his eyes wistful and glossy. The rolling hills in front of him stretched far into the distance, curling around the village and its church spire before diving down into the lake. He looked back at the stone before him, a small smile spread across his lips, trying to force happiness into his mind.

 

“Hey Cal…” he stopped, clearing his throat. “Mate.” He struggled for words, thoughts and feelings firing from his mind, desperate to be the first to escape. “Been a while. Um…not sure how long, Susan usually keeps track of this kind of thing, but you know what happ…” he stopped again, feeling the tears building in his eyes, his throat closing. “Of course you don’t, silly of me to…” he stopped again, sighing. “She left about a year ago, staying with her mother,” he chuckled, “You remember that old bat don’t you? I think it was about ten years ago now, Susan and I had just started dating and I went to her’s for dinner, followed by us going out with you and Lucy. I think it was her, anyway. Back then, you could never keep track of their names. Used to shout the wrong name out a lot. Then I'd have to pick up the pieces.” He turned and sat down, lacing his fingers together and tucking his jacket under himself, keeping the mildew from soaking into his jeans.

 

“Well, we were about to leave when Susan told her mother where she was going,” he laughed heartily, the memory lingering for a moment. As his laughter fell, the tweets of the birds slowly rose and the gentle breeze rushed past him again, causing him to shiver. “She was a bitch, wasn’t she? Remember when she was our English teacher for the first two years of secondary? How she would send us out of class for literally nothing!” The thought replayed. “Okay, maybe we did throw rubbers and pencils and… other such items at her, but it still wasn’t warranted.” He replayed the scene in his head, the rubbers hitting the back of the woman’s head and the cackling laughter that followed. Maybe he had been a bit of a cruel child. “Anyway,” he muttered, “enough about old memories.” He paused and thought back to his week. His shopping routine, his excessive binge-watching of shows and the amount of alcohol he had been consuming. Not much to talk about. “Not much has changed really. With Susan gone, I don’t have much to do, and without you, I don’t…” The night replayed and another tear brewed in his eye. The call. The weeping.

 

“Oh!” he exclaimed, grinning as he recalled a thought, “your team won!” he extended his arms as if others would extend towards him, but his hands remained empty. “I've been following them, on your behalf of course. I always get the name wrong, despite you constantly telling me their name and everything.” He sighed contently, the same warm feeling spreading through him. “And for the life of me, I can't remember now either. Ah well, I’ll remember the colours.” He chuckled and sighed again, the tweeting birds returning to their usual song. “But yeah, they won. Don’t know if it was the other thing or a game, but they won something, thought I'd let you know.” His eyes glanced over the words; 5th January 2019. He tore his eyes away, the call replaying and the tears building again. Words once again fought their way from his mouth.

 

“Um, yeah,” he coughed. “Sorry for not coming here for a… while. Been kinda hectic with Susan and Greg and you know. Same excuses I had when you were…” he stopped again and swallowed his mourns. “Greg still asks for you, kid still thinks you're grabbing him a Cadbury bar from Sainsbury’s. I keep telling him you're gone for a while, but he doesn’t listen. Wants to see his Uncle Callum every time we go to see your mum.” He paused again, looking out over the hills and the tranquil village, its street lamps flashing on, at least an hour earlier than necessary, but a charm he had come to love. “She’s doing good, your mother,” he went on, “her tea consumption is off the chart.” A smile flashed across his face as he pictured the elderly woman sipping from her teacup, staring at an old photograph across the room. “Practically swimming in the stuff.” He chuckled and glanced at the name; Callum McGregor. He reread it, the soft song of the birds matching the words, like they were strung together by a lyricist. “She asked about Susan and Greg and everyone. She was always brilliant like that.” He cleared his throat and picked some grass beneath him, twirling it around his fingers. Silence descended over him like a blanket, smothering him in wordlessness. The air was cold and the breeze mocking. The stone remained still, almost stoic against the weather, daring it to become worse. He smiled at the thought. Soon, the thought was lost and the words stopped fighting to come out. He was left in silence, his mind blank like a fresh canvas and his emotions raw. Unfiltered.

 

“You know,” he muttered, feeling the wind die down, allowing his words to fall, “everything was easier with you. You knew me and what I liked, who I liked. I could turn to you in any situation. When I was alone, there you were. Whether I wanted you or not. Usually with a beer and a grin.” He laughed at the picture and lifted his head to the darkening sky, hoping the breeze would carry his tears away. “When Susan gave birth, you drove me to the hospital, gave us a place to sleep when we couldn’t find a place of our own, and became the Godfather to our child.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “But with her gone, I don’t have anyone, and with you here…” he cleared his throat and sniffed, sucking up some of the mucus trying to escape. “Through everything, you were there. And now… you're not. You're not.” His sentence slowly died, absorbed into the tears and wails that took their place. He didn’t know how long he wept, but by the time he lifted his head, the sun had set and left him alone. The birds were asleep, as was the village down the hills. Above him, the lamp shone down, covering him in an angelic glow, illuminating the grass and dirt around him. The words were now bright, as if admitting their own light, shining forth into the twilight. He sat back, placing his hands on the damp grass and looking into the sky, which was slowly becoming more starry and beautiful.

 

“It's been three years,” he muttered, “three years of this.” He sighed and leaned forward, bringing his legs against his chest. The necklace hit him and he winced. Gently, he reached to his neck and pulled on the string around it, pulling the necklace from its position against his chest. Cautiously, keeping the jewellery itself in his line of sight at all time, he lifted it over his head, resting the jewellery piece in his hand, allowing the string to fall over the edge of his hand. He smiled again. The necklace was a piece of amethyst, carved into the shape of a tooth. The tooth itself wasn’t human, more animalistic than anything, but a tooth nonetheless. One side was deep purple, gradually getting brighter as it faded into white on the other side. The light above him shone through the purple, spreading it across his hand like a disco ball. He closed his hand around it and sighed.

 

“Remember when you gave this to me?” he said, “I had visited you for that week. You’d just lost your job, mother was sick, dad passed away the previous year. Susan and I had just gotten married, and she was pregnant again. A girl. One you haven’t met.” He sniffed and looked back at the letters. “You were in a bad place and I said I was coming to make sure you were alright. That you weren’t thinking about taking that same way out your sister had. You seemed fine. But you were scared, and I wasn’t sure what of, but you had that same look in your eye. The same look you have before I went off to university. The look that made it seem it would be the last time we would ever see one another. So, you accompanied me to the train station and I got on, suitcase in hand. As I was about to get on, I turned to say goodbye and you hugged me.” He stopped and looked back down at the tooth, the purple light returning across his skin. “You had never hugged me before. You’ve only ever hugged your mother. But, I assumed you were scared you would never be able to do so again.” He sniffed and cleared his throat again, tears slowly filling his eyes. “Then, you opened my hand and placed this into my palm.” He waved the tooth in the air, as if the stone could see it. “You said ‘So you have a reason to see me again’.” He sniffed again. “I thought you were being silly. You know, Callum McGregor, the man who turned my wedding into a live comedy gig. But I went along with it. Then, you watched as the train left the station.” He chuckled and sighed.

 

“I’ve worn it since then. Susan questioned why, and I told her. She thought I was being ridiculous too.” He cast his eyes back to the letters and his smile fell. “But then I got that call,” he paused, looking away. “Barely a month later.” He sighed and wrapped the string around his neck and allow the tooth to drop against his chest, bouncing against his woollen jumper. “You decided to take a girl dancing, and one too many drinks later, you wrap yourself around a fucking tree.” He could hear the phone ringing again, Susan turning as tears rolled down her face as she handed it to him. He coughed, pulling himself from the memory. “Death on impact, what we were told,” he chuckled slightly, “Greg was so confused, he thought we had watched some ‘sad TV’. Couldn’t understand why both mummy and daddy were crying.” The moon had risen, peering through the clouds. He looked up at the stars, which were now bright against the black sky, like bright beacons of potential hope, millions of miles away. “Funeral was a week later.” His hand rose to the tooth, clutching it desperately, like letting go would force him to forget.

 

“I couldn’t be here,” he whispered, “I couldn’t bring myself to see your name etched in stone every time I drove to work or bringing Greg home.” He looked behind himself, at the empty road that circled around the hill. “I drive past here sometimes, when I think about taking a shorter route to bed that night. The route’s long and winding. Wouldn’t be a surprise if I were found in a car wreck after a rainy night.” He kept his eyes on the road, imagining the wheel losing control, the ground zooming closer and the hideous crunch of metal and bone. The thoughts didn’t disgust him. He tore himself from the road and back to the words. “But then I see you, sitting here. Proud, looking over these hills and I remember you. And then I remember your necklace, and I think, you wouldn’t want it to be found on my bleeding and bloodied corpse, mangled in a flattened pancake of a car, probably crushing some poor woman’s flowers.” He laughed and unconsciously touched the tooth. “Even now, despite everything that’s happened, you’re still looking after me.”

 

He stood and sighed, his hand still on the tooth. A smile stretched across his lips and he reached forward with his remaining hand, lightly stroking the top of the stone. He blinked slowly and then looked back out into the village. The lights in the windows had gone out, but he could hear the joyful shouts of drunken men and women as they toured the village, drinking in every establishment that they could find. It was odd what people did to forget. His smile widened as he saw a silhouetted group staggering underneath the nearest lamppost, laughing heartily and swaying, hanging off one another. He looked back down at the words and smiled again, a familiar smile fading into his memory. He patted the stone.

 

“See you tomorrow, mate,” he whispered, before pulling out a hip flask and walking down into the village below, the tooth firmly in his grasp.