Title unknown at this moment

A woman at a crossroads in her life and feeling like she is losing her grip on reality

Sitting here, looking at this tombstone, I don't know why I come here. It's not like this stone can talk back. It's stupid, really—there's nothing this stone can offer me. But here I come, again and again, no rhyme or reason. It just feels like I get pulled here from time to time, like a damn traffic loop or the Bermuda Triangle. The best way to describe it is that this stone has its own gravitational pull.
​It must, because it's August and the heat is sweltering. The air is thick and feels like it's trying to consume me little by little. Somewhere nearby, there is a loud buzzing sound coming from what I can only assume has a large stinger, is sizing me up, and is planning its aerial attack. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear a lawnmower running and I catch the faint scent of freshly mowed grass. It smells like mint and something woodier I can't quite place, but pleasant to the senses all the same.
​As I'm sitting here on the damp earth in front of this stone, I close my eyes and lay back on the soft cushion of grass, listening to the sounds of the cemetery. The birds are chirping and the cicadas are particularly loud today. The sun is so hot—I swear these Oklahoma summers are hotter now than they used to be. It's funny, because I know I spent the majority of my childhood summers outside in the heat, but I swear the heat is different now. It's an all-consuming heat that you can't escape from... until the first freeze hits.
​A bead of sweat breaks free from my forehead and slowly inches its way down toward the back of my neck, leaving a little tickle in its wake. Behind my closed eyelids, everything is shining bright red. Seems fitting, anyway—red like my bleeding heart. I don't know why I keep giving to the hands that bite me, but I'm clearly a glutton for punishment. I come here to this stone a lot to talk out all my failures and even my dreams, which are a secret even to me until I get here. Then feelings, emotions, and desires can just pour out of me—things I can't even admit to myself when it's just me. But somehow, I can come clean to this stupid stone. I wonder why that is?
​I'm nothing special, just a middle-aged mom going through what's proving to be a messy divorce from a psychopath. Thinking about all the failures in my life. I come here often to vent about my failures—where else would I go? I'm currently forty-one, working a mediocre job in a mediocre town. When I was young, I was so full of life, so full of myself, with the confidence that only comes in your twenties. I can do anything, especially if you tell me I can't—that type of attitude.
​My first divorce taught me a lot. It also taught me that people aren't always who they seem to be. We were young; I was twenty-three when I got married, and he was twenty-five. It was a lifetime ago, but sometimes it still feels like yesterday. I can remember how nervous I felt, how miserably hot it was, and how I felt like I was betraying my parents in some way. There was something about that phrase when the preacher asks, "Who gives this bride away?" and my dad stood up and said, "I do." I swear I heard his voice crack a little, and to this day, I don't know if it was because he was overjoyed or because of an overwhelming sadness. I can't even imagine right now how it feels to essentially give your child away to another man, especially knowing they'll never take care of your baby the way they deserve. Thank God I'm not at that juncture yet; I'm not sure I could handle that.
​My current juncture isn't a particularly pleasant one, either. Living with my elderly father again is an odd adjustment. We get along—he understands me and takes care of me in all the ways a father should. I really did win the dad lottery, and I'll never deny it. But I also feel like I never have any time—or maybe it's space—to just be me, unapologetically me. Which is strange, because he loves me for me and mostly leaves me alone to do my own thing. I just feel wound, like I'm always being watched even though I'm not.
​Maybe it's the ghosts that live in the house. Lord knows after forty-one years in one house, there are definitely some ghosts haunting you. My mother died a few years ago, God rest her soul. Not in the house or anything, but somehow she is still very much present in every inch of it. She was a very tiny woman with silver hair and a look of discontentment on her face... to put it nicely. She had an opinion about anything and everything, and unfortunately, she was usually right. It was actually really annoying.
​My dad worshipped her. She never even learned how to pump gas—she didn't have to, that's what he was for. He did everything for her. There was a time when she needed a new recliner because hers had started to lean from the way she always sat on one foot, leaning on her elbow, smoking her cigarette. Well, she couldn't be troubled to go shopping herself for her own recliner. Oh no, my father and I were sent on a mission with specifications in hand as to what she wanted. Needless to say, we did not get it right the first time, or the second, or even the third... the fourth time was the charm. I swear she was like the Princess and the Pea! This one's too tall... this one's too scratchy... this one swivels! It's a good thing she liked the fourth one, because we were running out of local furniture stores.
​But man, he loved her. How have I failed so bad in the romance department with such a fine example of how a man should treat a woman? How have I found myself leaving the most verbally abusive situation I have ever been in? How did he have me questioning my worth in the first place?
​Oh yeah... I remember. He love-bombed me for two years and told me how wonderful I was and how talented I was, showered me with love and affection and all the right attention. I truly believed this was the man he was and always would be, and how lucky was I to have found an equally broken human who had rebuilt themselves in all the most impressive ways. It seemed like fate. We had dated in middle school—I know, I know, how cliché. For obvious reasons, middle school love didn't last, and he joined the Army when the towers fell a few years later. I mean, everyone knew that was his path. Even if the towers hadn't fallen and war hadn't started, he still would have been Army-bound. Either way, he had a rough go in the military and received a Purple Heart among many other awards... if that's what you'd call them. I think I'd call them traumas. Each and every one you earn definitely steals something from you in return.
​OH, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!
​I'm ripped right out of my intrusive thoughts and slapped into immediate pain. I swat frantically at my arm out of pure reflex. It puts me on full alert before my brain can even catch up. I sit up abruptly, everything washed in a blurry crimson haze from the sun soaking through my closed eyelids.
​I look down to see the dead offender: a fucking horsefly. The most useless bug on the planet. I mean, seriously, what purpose could a horsefly possibly serve other than being a complete nuisance? None, that's what. And now my arm is bleeding. I'm hot, irritated, and totally over this whole year.
​I wipe the bead of blood on my pants and look up. Off in the distance, I spot another person standing in an undeveloped section of the cemetery, not really near a headstone—just kind of standing there out of place. My eyes are still completely out of focus from the glare. I rub them hard, push my glasses back onto my face, and shift my weight to scramble to my feet.
​When I look back up, the figure is still standing there. My heart skips a beat.
​It has to be the heat. It has to be the stress of my life, or these damn hormones playing tricks on me, right? Because I swear that person in the distance looks just like the person I'm sitting here talking to like an idiot today. An aged version, sure, but from a distance, the likeness is uncanny.
​It's not possible. No, it's just the heat—it's only 101 degrees today with a "feels like" temperature of 111. What the fuck does that even mean anyway? If it feels like 111 degrees, then it's 111 degrees! Don't feed me any of this delusional bullshit about actual temperature versus "feels like." It's fucking insane nonsense. Or maybe it's perimenopause—the joyous surprise that nobody bothered to warn me about, by the way!
​Either way, I can't possibly be seeing what I think I'm seeing. I've officially gone off the deep end; I am clinically unhinged.
​I force myself to look away because it feels bizarre staring at a total stranger in a cemetery, and I start gathering my keys and my bag. But I can't shake the eerie feeling. I keep trying to figure out why my brain would even go there in the first place.
​When I glance back up, the figure has taken that exact moment to make her exit. I watch her slip out of sight in the distance, unable to tell if she stepped into a car or where she disappeared to.
​Just to settle my own racing brain, I decide to walk over to the spot where she was standing—just to prove to myself that it was all my overactive imagination.
​Instead, resting in the grass, I find a silver ladybug charm, like it snapped off a bracelet.
​Now, I'm not a superstitious woman—or at least, I wasn't. But the coincidence is way too wild. How could I have hallucinated her when this physical ladybug is sitting right here in the exact spot she was standing? What are the odds it's been lying here for days and I'm just losing my mind?
​You know what? I don't know, I think to myself. It's too hot to think, my brain hurts, I'm starving, and I desperately need a nap.
​I retreat back to my car, blast the AC at full blast, and pull out of the cemetery to head home for a shower. I have no idea how to explain what just happened today, other than the fact that I must be going completely crazy—and hopefully a good night's sleep will cure it.