Nick feels soft silky hair on his arms. Keeping his eyes closed, he can picture the color; chestnut with honey overtones. He feels smooth, cool skin against his chest and he knows exactly who it belongs to just by the touch. He hears slow, even breaths and he smiles knowing that she's breathing. He smells cinnamon and vanilla and lotion and he inhales deeper.
And although he can feel these things, he knows they are lies. Miley, his Miley, is gone and she has been gone and she's never coming back.
He doesn't think there will ever be a day that he doesn't wake up imagining that she's still here with him.
He remembers mornings in bed, while she radiated against the crisp sheets, smiling and giggling softly. He remembers her laugh and the way she'd get quiet and stare straight into his eyes. And he remembers the way it felt like she was looking at his soul. He remembers the way she'd kiss him on the lips and then pull away and say I love you, Nicky and he remembers how he'd dive in for another kiss hoping to leave her as breathless as she left him and then whisper I love you too. And he remembers how they'd spend hours just laying in bed, doing nothing.
But then the image is taken over by storm clouds. He remembers the feel of the rain on his face and the lights flashing in his eyes. He remembers the people trying to comfort him and how he pushed them away. He remembers being soaking wet, he had to have been from all the rain, but he doesn't remember what it felt like. Because he wasn't feeling anything.
And he remembers the body as they pulled her out of the wreck. He remembers the white dress that had been stained scarlet, and how she had tried it on just hours before asking Does this look okay? and he remembers how he couldn't find the right words to tell her how perfect she was. And he remembers thinking, realizing, knowing that there was no way she could have survived but he also remembers wishing, hoping, praying that she had. He remembers the screams and he remembers not knowing where they were coming from and wishing they would stop and he remembers realizing that the agonizing cries were his own and then he remembers the asphalt on his knees and his tears mingling with the rain. And that's where he forgets.
He forgets what happens next until he wakes up in a hospital room hooked up to an IV with his family and hers around him, all draped in black. He opens his mouth but his older brother, Joe, catches his eye and shakes his head, urging him not to ask the question he needs to know the answer to. And then he feels the hole in his heart and he knows that she's gone forever.
The picture fades and he's left with the darkness behind his eyelids. He opens his eyes but the bed isn't empty. His current girlfriend reaches out and touches his face.
Are you okay? she asks, her brown eyes filled with love and concern. They aren't his two blue oceans, deep with love. Her thick dark hair is nothing like hers. She smells like peppermint and black licorice. And she's awake before him.
I wish you were Miley he thinks, even though he knows he shouldn't. Even though he knows its not her fault. He knows it's not her fault, because he knows that it's his, it's all his.
It's not your fault she says, like she knows him. And maybe she does. Maybe he would know that if he could concentrate on anything except Miley for just five freaking minutes.
Despite what she says, despite what everyone says, he knows that it's his fault. Even with his eyes open he remembers the headlights of the truck on the wrong side of the road and he curses himself for turning to the right into the trees instead of into the empty lane next to him. There will never be a day that he doesn't imagine that night turning out a thousand different ways, from sparing her life, to him just having a split second of knowing to say goodbye to her.
And yet it doesn't surprise him that God would ask for her back. Because she was beautiful, and she was funny, and she was kind. And she was an angel on earth and for a while she had been his.
And he knows there will never be a day that he doesn't wake up thinking about her.
