trente deux

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15:38

The sun warms my skin, but the frigid aura from the girl next to me has a grasp around my neck.
Said girl is obsessing over a shirt she saw in the window of a store on our way here.

"I can buy it for you, if you'd like." I offer.

Rae shakes her head, "no, you don't have to do that. It's probably better that you don't, anyway. Everyone at the cemetery says it's better if I wear the clothes I died in because they're the last part of me that I have from my actual life. Another thing is that if I move on while I'm in other clothes, I won't have the ones I died in. But I don't really get that because none of us know what's going to happen after we move on. I guess it makes sense but-"

"I get it," I laugh.

She gives me a nervous smile, "yeah."

"You're very talkative lately. What's going on?" We took a different path than usual and it has lead us to a meadow.

She looks away from my direction.

"Rae?" I stop and turn her to me.

I keep my hand on her elbow until she looks at me.
It's unnerving looking into those gray eyes and knowing she can't feel me.

Her hand reaches up and pushes a piece of hair, that has fallen, back in its place.
She stares at my face for a moment.
Then a half smile appears on her face.

"I'm sad." Her eyes look from my lips to my eyes.

I furrow my eyebrows. "Can you elaborate a little bit?"

"I'm talking so much because I'm sad. Whenever I act over-excited and hyper, I forget about the pain."

"Why are you sad?" I begin to feel slightly panicked.

I hope it isn't because of me.

"My head hurts. My chest hurts. My feet hurt. My hands hurt. My stomach hurts. I can feel something, Harry. It's just not a pleasant feeling. When I smile it makes everything hurt more, and I've been smiling a lot lately." Her eyes are sad.

I'm so glad she can feel something, but I don't want that something to be painful. "What hurts the most?"

"Everything hurts when you're in love."

I stare at her.

She's in love?
With who?

"You make me forget I'm not alive and I think that's what's tearing me apart."

Is she saying she's in love with me?

"Whenever I'm with you, it makes me feel less like a phantom and more like a living and breathing person. I think that's why I'm starting to feel this pain." She looks at me expectantly. "Can you say something? Anything?"

My mouth is dry.
My lips shake.
My mouth opens and closes about a hundred times.
I feel like if I were to say something, I'd fall to my knees and cry.

She's still standing here.
Expecting something from me.
Anything.

Rae barely shakes her head and begins walking in the other direction.

"I love you." The words are hardly audible.

She stops dead in her tracks.

She turns around slowly.

I have tears in my eyes and my heart is beating a mile a minute.
I say it again.

"I love you."

Her eyes are wide and her eyebrows are furrowed.

"This is all so fucked up, but I would be lying through my teeth if I said I didn't love you."

"Harry . . ."

She says my name like its the most delicate thing she's ever had pass through her lips.
Every time she says my name, I feel a sense of belonging settle in my chest.

"I don't want you to tell me that I shouldn't love you or that I'm crazy because I do. I just want you to accept it. I want you to know that, even if we aren't together, I will still love-"

"Harry," she interrupts me. "I don't know if I'm allowed to love someone who is alive. Let alone, love at all."

"Do you, though? You know, love me?" I'm desperate for her to say the words.

"Yes."

I sigh and step toward her.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders and pull her against me.
She falls into my chest and puts her arms around my waist.

"I love you."

Beyond life and wherever you may go.

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