Nightfall ✓

Chapter 32

• chapter thirty-two •

For a whole minute, I looked back and forth between them. I laughed. "What?" They didn't answer. "This is a prank, right? He's standing outside, isn't he?"

Zack shook his head and cried harder, body convulsing with pain.

How could they even do this to me? Was I in less pain already? "THIS IS NOT FUCKING FUNNY!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "WHERE IS HE?!"

"You know we won't play a prank like this on you." His voice held the greatest sorrow.

"I don't believe you." But then why were my hands shaking? Why couldn't I breathe? Why did I feel like I was sinking?

"He jumped and...and...killed himself."

"He would never kill himself, and he would never jump from a height. He was scared of heights." I sounded like I was trying to convince myself.

Zack pulled out a folded up piece of paper. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. A hot tear dropped onto my cheek. I looked at it, then at him. "What is this, Zack?" My voice broke.

"He left a note for you."

I looked at him dumbly. Five minutes passed before I gathered the courage to open it with trembling fingers.

Hazelnut,
I know you will hate me for doing this, but I don't think we have any choice left now. We've been trying to find a way out for ages, but we haven't, and we aren't going to. We knew that one of us had to go, and I guess it had to be me. It serves me right. I'm sorry I challenged you to enter the stupid sanatorium. We should've stayed outside in the rain. I wish I could see what our child will look like. I hope he has your eyes. They're the most beautiful pair I have ever seen.
It's not that I don't love the child. I do. I'm sorry I fought with you over it so much.
Please don't blame yourself or the baby for this. It had to happen someday.
I love you. I love you so much, I can't even express it in words, because words will be insufficient and I won't be able to do justice to the feeling. I won't even try to write about it because it would make me feel like an incapable writer. You have given me so much; this is the least I can do for you: I want you to have a happy life with our child. I want you to find a man, and I want you to love him as much as you loved me. And someday, in a moment of intimacy, I hope you tell him about me, I hope you talk to him about me the way you told me about Ryan. I hope you remember me as a beautiful time in your life and nothing more. Please don't grieve over me and hold on to me for longer than necessary. A month, at most, because I think I deserve that much. I will remember you too. I will think of you in my next life. And if I remember enough, I swear I will write a novel for you.
I want you to see our child grow up to be a beautiful person.
I love you, Hazel.
Please find that mediator woman again. She said that both the souls, mine and Mary's, had to be exorcized together. Please make sure that I peacefully proceed to the afterlife. I don't think you'd want me to visit you as a ghost. You've had enough of that. Heh. I can imagine you almost rolling your eyes at my stupid joke.
(Clichè as it might seem, I'm going to sign off as Lemonade)

My tears flowed like an uncontrollable river, dissolving the words in front of me into a blur.

How could he do this to me? How could he leave me alone? How could he even think that I would find someone else and be happy again?

I hadn't even talked to him properly when he'd come. Why the fuck had I pretended to be angry? What was wrong with me?

Out of the blue, I had an image of him in my mind saying his last words to me: my mom's death taught me that we should always leave a loved one with kind words. It could be the last time we see them.

I'd said that I wasn't going to die.

He wasn't talking about me at all. He was talking about himself. He'd come so that I wouldn't hate myself for the rest of my life for saying something ugly to him.

Had I told him I loved him? I couldn't remember. I had probably said it just once. Why hadn't I said it enough? I had so much to say that he would never know.

∞

We had his funeral ten days later. Ash, being less traumatized than I was, helped me get dressed. I lifelessly followed her instructions, thankful to have someone who could take charge of me. Before we left my apartment, I consumed a milligram of Eszopiclone, after having gone online and reading that the sleeping pill could calm the brain, reduce alertness, and cause — to some extent — a short-term memory loss. It was the only medicine I could immediately lay my hands on. Liam had kept it because he had had trouble falling asleep after his recovery from the coma. The prescription advised him to use it for around two weeks, and after that three of the pills remained unconsumed. I didn't care if the medicine had expired; I needed it, even if it would have landed me in the hospital again. I had decided that there was no way I could make it through the procession without falling into pieces. I wanted to be numb. And the memory loss was a chance bonus. Even today, I remember almost nothing about the funeral. I don't even want to remember.

But I thought about the Garden of Death from the 'Canterville Ghost'. Far away beyond the pine-woods, there is a little garden. There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the cold crystal moon looks down, and the yew tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers...Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, and be at peace. I hoped he was in a place as beautiful as that.

I did as he'd asked me to: I contacted Rachel again. She performed the exorcism while I sat cross-legged across from her. Sometime between her mumbling and chanting, she called my name. My head snapped up. "Hm?"

"Liam is here with us." Her smile was watery. I blankly gawked, watching the play of the dancing candle flames on her face. "Behind you," she clarified, and I understood what she meant as soon as a surreal sense of peace settled over me, enveloping me like a warm blanket.

"Hi," said a husky whisper in my brain. At first I didn't know how to respond. I closed my eyes. In the dark, I could feel him better. I imagined him sitting behind me with his arms thrown around my neck and chin resting on my head, the way he often used to hold me.

"I love you," I thought fiercely, meaning every word of it. "I love you I love you I love you." Could he feel my emotions too?

I sensed a smile in his voice. "I know that. I love you too." I bit my lip. There was no way I was going to cry and waste even a millisecond of this conversation. I hiccuped; a few tears escaped. I drew in a deep, noisy breath. "I'll always be with you, Hazel. I'm not dead. I'm only taking a new body. Souls keep coming back to each other, you know that? We might meet again. Take care till then."

I felt a kiss. Not anywhere in particular, just a vague feeling of a kiss. The blanket softly lifted off me. I was flung into chaos again, and I was crying harder than ever, but I felt calmer, less restless.

Later that week, Zack and Ash had dreams in which Liam visited them. They said they had felt peaceful. I told them it was real.

A month after, when I was somewhat stable, I found myself strolling among yellow autumn leaves, looking at everything in hindsight. Even now, I could figure out no alternative solution.

I couldn't help thinking that we might have won some battles along the way, but we had lost the war.

∞