He knew he'd see her soon as he lay the dull, odourless supermarket flowers upon the newly engraved headstone. Gently he placed his lips against the smooth marble. Trying to hide the fact that his eyes were glazed over like newly cut glass he swallowed down the lump in his throat, because although he remained alone on this dead spring morning, he wanted to be strong for the girl he had loved that now lay beneath his thick hiking boots, the same boots he always wore.

Never would he stop regretting not telling her, his best friend, how much he really loved her, how precious she was to him. She had almost made his life bearable, he had thought he had done the same but now blame and guilt grew over his beating heart.

An early morning freshness drifted about the graveyard as he stood in reverie at his true love's name, remembering once telling her how we become both nothing and everything all at once when we die. How he had explained that her grandfather surrounded her entirely in the form of atoms, no longer in the form of a human being.

He recalled the text he had received from her the morning of her unexpected death - "I'll be with you forever, just not as me. You taught me about atoms and without knowing you taught me how to love. My infinitesimal atoms will surround you for infinity and I hope that that comforts your sweet soul, thank you for everything." - How she had signed odd in such a way that was so utterly unforgettable, because he'd never meet anyone as loving as she was.

Why the world had treated such an amiable being in the way it had, he would never come to fathom, but he understood one thing about it all. He understood how a singular individual had changed his life unconditionally, how the atoms that had made up her were the only atoms he cared for, the only atoms he wanted to keep reserved for the entirety of the universe.

But everyday that passed he saw her smile, her positivity that masked the pain she had hidden for so long, the pain that she had only revealed to him, because she trusted him and he cared and held her each time she came weeping to his door.

Everyday he saw her face and her atoms. The face that he wanted to kiss so badly, the face that he no longer had the chance to kiss. The atoms that he would be surrounded by, the atoms that would comfort him, because he had once comforted the beautiful body they had lived in for fourteen years.

"Goodbye." He mournfully whispered, for the final time.