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As a little girl, I would have been far too frightened to come to a cemetery at sunset. Or anywhere near sunset. Actually... let's cut that sentence after "cemetery." But I'm a big girl now, visiting the grave of a little boy who thought he was bigger than he was, and bringing flowers like a good friend would.
          The sky is striped with the magenta clouds of early July as I kneel down, careful not to let my nice black silk stockings touch the wet grass. The pink reflects off the clean, white marble, but I manage not to look at it for too long. The glare covers up his name, which is a good thing, I guess. Last time I did this... I want to say I cried. But I didn't cry. I don't remember actually crying over this in particular. Thinking about the general air of "oh my god we're teenage fucking clichés" and such, I did cry, but except for that. No.
          It's been five months and change. Longer than any romance I've ever maintained. It's probably ridiculously selfish to think like that, but I see it differently from most of his other friends: There is absolutely no point in my centering my own life around his death. I was talking to Cristine about this, after someone started passing around this huge, completely inappropriate card to be put on his tombstone. She called me up, asking why I didn't sign it. I let the phone go dead for a minute before explaining how I deal with it. She returned my silence, then her voice went cold. "You're such a bitch. You don't even care." And then she hung up.

          That was two weeks ago, and I've been at least by the cemetery every day. Still haven't seen the card. I haven't seen any of the kids there, actually, since the second month.
          But I've seen him there. He sits on the corner of his stone, staring out at the kids from my school as they walk down the hill past the cemetery he lives in, past the one thing left of himself. They all promised to see him, said they'd never forget him in letters pinned to his locker, quotes thrown at reporters in hopes of landing a mention in the paper.
          He started showing up around the third month after he died, when almost everybody seemed to have forgotten him. I have no idea whether or not he's appeared to anyone else. All I'm aware of is that one day, as I dropped off some Queen Anne's lace picked from the lawn outside school, I distinctly heard him say 'thank you' to my retreating backside. Thinking I was caught up in make-believe, I turned around to take a last look at the stone and he was there, dressed in his favorite jeans and shirt, almost solid. As if he were himself, but reflected in a concave mirror and projected onto a piece of paper.

          Today, he looks the same, still hovering between reality and the other side of the veil. He's behind the stone now, and he watches me as I drop the bundle of roses. I haven't come here for two weeks, and I feel guilty that I haven't at least come inside the gates. He only comes out once I'm inside the place, feet on the grass. I also feel guilty because he explained to me that the only reason he came back is because everyone already forgot him. He felt like he was still a part of this world for the months that people held him in their hearts, but once people started to forget the color of his eyes, the smell of his deodorant, he was shocked back into returning.
          It sounded a bit like the kind of guilt trip my mother would pull on me, but he was dead. He had been one of those well-known kids, and all of a sudden he's no longer in the spotlight-- or any light at all, since he only stands far away from sunlight, something he never explained, but which I assume is some ghost thing. He never asks me to come back, but I see him in my dreams when I don't come for a while.
          As I stand up, I see him behind his own grave, translucent fingers gripping the stone. He knows that I usually wait for him to speak; this time is no different. He asks if anyone's talked about him, thought about him. The usual debate goes through my head: tell him no and have to see his despondency, or lie and say yes, knowing that he knows it's a lie, because why else would he be here? I always side with the lie.
          "No."
          He looks at me funny, as if he knows I should keep my part of the bargain and say what he wants to believe. I tell him I've brought flowers, the roses bought in penance. His face holds the same bewildered expression, one messy eyebrow burrowing into the other. The silence holds for five minutes, ten. I finally stretch my arms and bid him a good night, walking out of the cemetery faster than I ever have, faster than I did at age six, visiting my grandmother with both of my parents but still so scared, so scared.

          I dream the same scene over, what would have happened if he had opened his mouth instead of keeping it in that line of confusion. He tells me he's scared, that he'll really be nothing once nobody remembers him. He says that's why he walks circles around his tombstone all the time, hoping that somebody besides me will see him. Nobody ever does. In the dream, I pick up my roses and hold them right under his face, or its image. I ask him if he can smell them. He looks like he's breathing in the most beautiful scent, something no laboratory could ever mix. And then he says he can't smell them.
          His skin becomes clearer, like paper with grease on it as opposed to the stubborn thickness of wax paper.
          A few petals fall off the roses, which I'm still holding as if he can sense them, so I let them fall. I tell him to go home. That I'll still be here, still remember him, still drop by with flowers and my respects.
          His hair, once sandy blonde, looks as if it's been bleached out of the picture completely. His eyes are all that's at all solid of him anymore, and I can see bits of him ripping off in the breeze, dissipating like smoke rings.

          The alarm clock rings at the most inopportune time, and I close my eyes and wish myself back to sleep, back to the cemetery. It doesn't work. The buzzer's still going and I finally turn it off, then get up and go to the bathroom, shedding clothes on the way to the shower. Under the stream of water, my own skin seems suddenly much heavier than I ever remembered.
          At school, I drop my books at my locker and look at the school bulletin board. A very small, handmade collage is pinned to the corner, with a pictures of a group of friends, a couple, a track meet. The golden boy, now dead, pops out from the very center of every one. His initials are carefully calligraphed under the montage in silver Sharpie. I smile without meaning to and know that I won't be going to the cemetery today.