A/N You could say, set after Merciless eyes.
Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
-Benjamin Disraeli
I'm stuck.
I'm caught.
I'm held fast.
I'm trapped. I'm…So Confused.
So…Lost.
All I know is that I'm alive. That is the one thing…one fact that hurts just that little bit more than this new …unbelievably painful reality.
I'm alive. She isn't …Simple. So Heart-wrenchingly god damn simple.
Yet here I am ….My life in total disarray. My mind is tangled and chaotic.
A puzzle. Yes, My life is now a puzzle ...but all the pieces have gone missing. Well, actually that's not completely true. See I know where the missing pieces of my heart are. There with her.
Everything I am is with her. But she's gone, so, so am I.
So here I lie. Mystifyingly trapped is the middle of my sorrow and grief.
I think I might be crying, lightly …softly…I couldn't really tell. I don't know anything anymore
What day is it?
What time is it?
Where am I?
WHO
AM
I?
"Lillian…Lily" Someone is knocking lightly on the door.
I don't answer. Words still escape me. They take my silence as a hint I want to be left alone. I hear their footsteps slowly dieing out. Just like everything I've ever known.
I'm lying on a bed. Dried up tears staining my pale cheeks, their salty taste still fresh on my shredded lips.
"Lils…Lil, Can I come in?" a gentle and Oh so familiar voice replaces what I think might have been my Mother at the door. He wants me to answer …but he also knows I can't.
The door opens; a bit of darkened yellow light from the hallway seeps into the darkened interior of what I recently figured out was my bedroom. He walks in, slowly …not wanting to awaken the agonizing rage that still lies just under the surface.
He looks nearly as bad as me. If that were even possible.
I sit up. My bones ache …It hurts too move.
I look at him; I see his solemn, sorrowful eyes. In that moment I lose it. I just break.
Tears fall like rain. The emotional…torture comes in droves. Regret, Pain and Anger are tearing through me. Racking, shaking me to my core. I feel my body start to curl, as though I'm trying to protect myself from the downpour of emotion. I pull at my hair. Make it stop Make it stop.
Every wall I thought I had built. Every barrier to pain that I convinced myself was holding strong. Just breaks. Just falls. Letting everything I desperately never wanted to feel to come in and tear me up.
I look up at him. My eyes finally letting someone other than her in. He holds my gaze, the tears keep on falling but this time they are not alone. He comes closer, he bends down next to me. He's crying too. I grab him by the shoulders lifting his head to mine. I shake him. Make it stop. Make it stop. I plead. I beg.
Why is he not listening? He looks away, untangling himself from my death grip. He sits on the bed next to me. Why won't he hold me? Why won't he comfort me? Why won't he make it stop?
It's been a while. His tears have stopped. He's slowly moved to the other side of the bed. Like my pain is contagious and not being near me will protect him from feeling it. Doesn't he get that I need to share this someone? Doesn't he understand that I can not do this alone?
Tears softly reduce into a trickle of grief. I'm looking down, watching as the droplets seep into my jeans.
"Lily…We …we have to… go downstairs" His hoarse whisper breaks the silence. His words, though whimpered ever so softly blare in my ears.
"Lily" He slowly stands up; he doesn't offer me his hand. He just watches me. Why won't he help me through this? Why won't he do what all best friends promise to do? Why won't he be there for me?
He walks away. Glancing at me on his way out. But he's not… looking at me. He sees me differently now. I can tell. His eyes are filled with Pity and unshed tears. He feels so sorry for me. I know. So why won't he answer my plea.
The door clicks shut. I slide onto the floor, bringing my knees up to my chest, holding them close. I'm desperately grasping them to me as though they'll shield me from the shadows that have now encompassed the room.
I'm terrified. Not of the dark but of what the night shall bring. And what I will have to face in the morning.
--
I don't know how I got here.
It's all a blur. I vaguely remember waking up. My eyes stung…Yes I remember, I couldn't move it ached all over. It hurt to breathe. Still does.
My Mother came in and got me dressed like she did when I was younger. I felt like I was 100 years old. Frail and severely broken.
As I was gradually waking up I kept thinking…Why am I putting myself through this?
I came down the stairs taking them one at a time… I kept asking myself why it was important for me to get to the next step. I kept …and I keep asking myself… why am I doing this? Why am I even attempting to keep on living when my reason for being on this god forsaken earth was taken from me…so suddenly, too soon?
That's why I don't want to be here. Here …is my nightmare.
People are coming towards where we are sitting. Everyone is in black. Yes. That's where I am. This vast grassland with …bodies a mere 6 feet under. But I'm only here for one body.
Everybody is only here for one.
Everyone has their seat now. The priest is speaking, words of infinite wisdom. People are sobbing. I hear the cries…they are so loud. So much pain. Too much.
Everything is in slow motion. With the edges blurred and the images sharply changing, reversing yet it's taking my mind too long to understand and take anything in. It's like when you're so tired that everything just wants to stop working.
It's over. People are walking up to the …I can't even say it.
People I've never met are giving me glances, nods of sympathy. It doesn't help. Not one little bit. Everyone here is saying goodbye.
I don't think I can.
----
I don't know how long I've been standing here. I'm about a meter away from what used to be…her. I'm not planning on going any closer. Any closer would be like stepping straight into hell.
Being near everything I lost and miss more than anything in the world would be like asking for pain. Asking for torture. Asking for Reality
Cause, seeing her …seeing her again would make it undeniably real. And I'm not ready for the truth.
Everyone is gone. I can sense it. I think my mother is waiting in the car. I should go. But I can't because I can feel her. Standing so physically close to her for the first time in what feels like forever is as close to heaven as I'll ever get on earth.
Standing a meter away from her is my heaven and hell. She's here but she's not.
I hear footsteps on the grass. I turn around. I see him. He's wearing a suite. His shoes polished and his hair brushed. It's not him but he pulls it off. He was sitting near me I think. But I was too stuck to be able to fathom anything other than my own grief.
He attempted a smile as he saw me looking straight at him. I've learnt never to attempt a smile. It just looks like a pained grimaced. That's what it is really.
"Hey Lils" He walks over to me. Standing beside me he takes my hand. We both look towards her.
"You don't have to do this" He whispers in my ear squeezing my hand and kissing me on the forehead. But i think i do.
He's here now. He's here. I am not alone.
I take one step. He's right beside me. We're on this journey together.
I take another. I'm closer. I'm having second thoughts
I take one more step. I'm as close as my heart will physically let me get. I don't want to be here. I stumble backwards but he puts a hand on my back and gives me an encouraging smile. This time it actually looks like a smile. I turn my head back to facing her.
I
Don't
Want
To
Do
This.
What I want to do is run. I want to keep running. Forever and ever, I want to get away from this, I want to never look back, and I want the pain to stop. I want her back.
Summoning strength I didn't know I had, I put my free hand on the…the…Coffin. No! NO! No more words that make it real! But I realize it's too late. If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to look over the edge and fall into what I know is going to hurt more than anything then I can't hide behind denial. I can't run. I'm here and it's time.
I'm Holding his hand so tight ...It's my life line. I picture him squirming in that over-exaggerated way he does. It's funny.
I swiftly look over the edge of the marble white bed.
I stop breathing.
She looks so beautiful. She's lying there, Peaceful as ever and she looks like a goddess. She always looked like a goddess. Except for the last time I saw her. But it's different now; it's not like that cold, horror-filled night in the Hospital. Her face is not gaunt and pasty, Her Hair is not spilled crazily over a stiff white pillow. Her hands are not clenched in pain.
She is so Serene. Her expression is calm. She is relaxed. She looks the most alive I have seen her in the longest time. She is but merely sleeping; a beautifully untroubled sleep only God would dare wake her up from.
Images from when i last saw flash through my mind. Too much pain. Maybe this was God's way of helping her. Maybe this was the answer to her pleaded prayers.
Her last days here with me were not last days at all; they were just life's way of telling us death is coming. Death is always coming. But that doesn't mean it is evil.
Death is the more universal than life , for everybody lives but not everybody dies. No, evil is a human invention.
I reach out, my hand slightly stroking her cheek. My unworthy hands trace her cheekbone and her jaw line. Her lips and her nose. My undeserving finger tips brush her eye lids. I picture what I remember to be under them. Those sparkling eyes. Those lively twinkling eyes that held so much mystery yet so much truth. I imagine her eyes are still like that.
They were and will always be just that. Alive. Cause that's her. That's who she is.
I take one last look at her, soaking in her Beauty.
She looks like Coming Home.
--
I'm at her house. What I would have once liked to eventually call my own. Nearly everyone has left the wake. The only people who remain are those who actually meant something.
I look at those sitting around the living room. Her father. Her brother. My mother. Her other best friend. I look up and I realize these are the most important people in my life now.
I want her back. I'll always want her to come back …to me. But I also know that she can't . Sometimes you just have to want to things you can never have, Thats how you can keep going. It's what drives us. It's what keeps us from getting buried in the harshness of reality. Dreams....And Nightmares.
For without the Night we wouldn't love the Day so much. We wouldn't cherish the sunlight if we did not have the stars.
I'll always know that though she isn't here right now. She's always with us, she's always with me.
Everything is alright in the end and if it's not alright, it's not the end. We'll see each other again. One day we'll all be re-united. And until then, she'll just have to walk beside me.
"Let's go Miles"
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A/N Living feels good again. Which is good.