It's probably too late to say goodbye, six years on. I'm not even sure that there's any point in doing it. Much as I would love to believe he's able to hear me, and understand that I'm sorry, I'm just too cynical and world-weary to allow myself any comfort from it. Anyway, why should I require comfort? He's been dead six years. We weren't even a couple by then. I've got no right to feel bereaved; I was the one who ended the relationship two years before his death and moved on, fresh start, happy now, tra-la-la. I'm not involved. He was just someone I knew, once upon a time.
You see, I try to convince myself of that. Of course it works for a while. Other people who know the story say things like, "You shouldn't beat yourself up about it, you weren't to know", or, "You were young, I'm sure he didn't hate you in the end", and I nod my head, and shrug my shoulders, and admit that I'm just being silly, but all the while that phone call from the police six years ago replays itself in my head, like the lyrics of some hatefully catchy song.
"We're investigating the disappearance of a Ben Paulson, Miss Garner, and believe you may be able to offer us some information to help with our enquiries."
I already knew he was missing, by this point. It had been reported in the local newspaper a few days before. Actually, he didn't live locally anymore - he'd moved hundreds of miles away a few months earlier - but I guess they reported it in the town Herald just in case he'd turned up back here. Perhaps the newspaper article hadn't quite sunk in by the time the phone call came, but I honestly don't remember being particularly worried by it.
"Okay," I said, as pleasantly as I could, but with the weird, unprovoked nervousness that accompanies any response to a police enquiry.
"Miss Garner, Mr Paulson was reported missing five days ago, and we wondered if he'd been in contact with you at all. When did you last hear from him?"
That was when a cold chill ran down my spine. In contact with me? Why in the name of God would he have been in touch with me? The last text message I had from him had been over six months ago, and it wasn't a particularly friendly one either. In fact, it was a heated expulsion, telling me that he was a million times happier with his new girlfriend than he had ever been with me. At the time, it felt more like he was trying to convince himself than me, but I didn't care either way. I was relieved he'd finally moved on. I'd been in a new relationship for ages. I'd tried to be friends with him, but he was relentless in his pursuit of me, whispering that my new boyfriend wasn't right for me, and that he knew I was still in love with him. It turned what could have been a reasonably pleasant friendship into something I was glad to be rid of, when he announced he was moving away. So he had a new girlfriend. She was welcome to him.
"I, err, got a text message from him, months ago. I've not spoken to him recently at all," I replied, "And we broke up two years ago, I can't imagine he would want to call on me anyway."
"On the contrary, Miss Garner. Mr Paulson was arguing with his girlfriend directly before his disappearance. Your name was mentioned. He wanted to see you."
I jotted down the crime reference number in a daze, with a promise to report any contact from Ben to the police. I asked if they could keep me notified too, but was told no, due to some protection laws. That was why I found out by reading the local paper the following week that they'd discovered his body in a ditch.
I was both touched and alarmed to receive a beautifully hand-written letter from Ben's mother, inviting me to go to the funeral in the first car with the family. It dawned on me that maybe he hadn't got over our break-up at all, despite his strongly worded text message to the contrary. Even his parents still considered me a part of his life. I wasn't sure how to respond to the grim invitation. I was a seventeen-year old college student who'd once been the teenage sweetheart of a boy who was dead. There are no answers to that situation in the problem pages of a teen magazine. I didn't know what to expect from his parents either. Would they blame me? Would they know more about this mysterious argument he'd had, where my name was mentioned? How was I going to bring up the questions I needed answers to on the day of their son's funeral?
On the morning of the funeral, I didn't cry. Even when I arrived at their house, and saw that everything was exactly as it was when we'd been together, I didn't cry. When his mum and dad hugged me, and his little brother offered me a cup of tea, and I mumbled all the usuals about wishing we were meeting in better circumstances, I didn't cry. It was when I enquired on the whereabouts of Monkey, Ben's beloved ginger cat, and was told that he'd passed away the previous year, that I sobbed. I cringe with embarrassment even now about that. Here I was, in the home of the parents of a dead son, waiting for the funeral cars to arrive, crying because the cat was dead. Grief certainly is a twisted emotion.
The funeral, as are all funerals, was horrible. It was the first time I'd ever seen a cremation, and it disturbed me. I spent the whole service barely listening to some old religious man who'd never even met Ben tell us all about him, unable to tear my eyes away from the nondescript wooden box beyond. It took all the strength I had not to leap up and down and yell, "Don't burn him! Ben's in there! Get out of the box, Ben; they're going to burn you!" I wanted to pound on the coffin and scream for him, but I was bound not only by the formality of the occasion, but by the irreversible feeling that I actually had no right anyway. Who was I? I wasn't even the dead man's girlfriend. I had no place acting the grief-stricken widow - when he'd finally given up on me and left town I'd been glad, yes, glad he was gone and was moving on with his life. Glad I was free to grow up and experience new things. If he wasn't dead I might never have seen him again anyway, and would I be howling with sorrow about that? No. I would probably talk about him in the past tense with scorn and derision, the lovelorn puppy dog who had to send a text to me to convince himself he was happy.
And that's what hurts the most. I still don't know, and never will know, if Ben was intending to get in touch with me when he died. I don't know what his feelings were for me. Did he decide there was no point in contacting me, because he knew what my reaction would be? It's hard for me to admit it now, but if he had phoned, or turned up on my doorstep, I doubt I would have welcomed him with open arms. I'd moved on. It terrifies me to think that he might have died hating me, cursing my name for breaking his heart, but it's even more chilling to think that he loved me still, whilst I wasn't giving him a second thought.
I said earlier that I was too cynical to believe that Ben knows I'm sorry, but that's not strictly true. The cause of his death, according to his mother, was a ruptured aorta. He had a heart murmur from birth, he had become a heavy smoker, and at the time of his death he was stressed, homesick and had been arguing with his girlfriend because he wanted to come home to his family and friends. The police say he was running when his heart failed, and he died almost instantly. On the night of the funeral, I dreamt I was lying with him on his bed at his parents' house. In the dream, Ben was trying to kiss and cuddle with me, and I kept saying, "No, I can't, I'll break your heart again." Ben laughed. A happy, youthful laugh. And he replied,
"Come on, don't be daft. My heart is fine now."
At least I have that to cling to. Cynical or not.