I can't breathe.
That is my first thought.
I can't think.
Which is why I do not acknowledge it.
I can't move.
I am completely frozen. Time is at a stand still.

Running.
Always have I been running.
From my past. From my present.
From my future.
But most always my past, containing his shadow, his marks, his ties.
Where he haunts me. When I am with him.
To when he was torn away from me, blood staining his shirt.
When my world crumbled at its foundation, finally being glued back together, piece by piece, by another's hand, reconstructed by another's words, loved again by another's heart.
Now it quakes, the fractions tearing off from their forces, slowly turning to dust... and something in me shatters.
I choke.
No, I think, my mind functioning only for these thoughts that tormented me. He's dead. He is dead. I saw it. I. was. there.
This is not Alex. This is not myAlex. It can't be. My Alex is dead. He was gone the moment I jumped that fence. I can't keep running from him. He is no longer mine.

This Alex does not look much different. He looks pained,-no, agonized. His eyes are hard, no longer the molten irisis I used to know, but glazed with a stone-like material, impenterable. His armor. A part of my old self thinks to comfort him, to tell him everything will be alright. But how does one comfort a ghost?

"Lena?" Julian asks. He is behind me but I still can't speak.
So many months. So many dreams. And when I thought the worst was over? This is the most sever hallucination yet.

Will his ties that bind me ever be cut?

Sudden fury fills me. I do not know why or where it is derived from but it is a steady flow of fire that pulses through my veins, setting everything in a scorching haze. Why must he keep doing this to me? "You're dead," I say, first unable to speak now my voice savagely venomous. I'm surprised. I have never been capable of this level of ferocity before.

The ghost looks me hard in the eyes, cool pools of electric pain, shock, and anger. Yes, I can definitely see anger. Good, this makes it easier. "Sorry to disappoint." He snaps.

Flames lick at my heart, heated over a newly stoked bonfire. "You're DEAD!" I yell a little more forcefully. How can a ghost not know he no longer exists? "You DIED! I saw it!I saw the blood! You could not have survived." I spit out each word as if they are vile and putrid to the tongue. "You are not real," I say with as much conviction as I can muster. "I'm cannot torment me anymore."

I get louder and louder, every emotion, every tear, every prickle of pain I have felt towards Alex lets loose in an attempt to make him disappear into nothingness, back to my memory, back in the cage I have locked him in with everything else for so long, to the point of acceptance.

"Leave me alone. You are not real," I repeat. "You are not even here!"

"Lena!" Julian again. He sounds concerned.
I would be, too if I saw someone I cared for yelling at a ghost to leave her alone.

I feel a tug on my arm but I pull it back. Ghost-Alex's aura seems dimmer. Some anger is gone, but not quite. "This is me, Lena."
By this point, I am fueled by pain, by the memories, everything crashing down on me, suffocating, drowning me in its sea of despair.

"He leftme behind. Why can't you just let me be happy?"

I know it is not his fault. I know he wanted me to live. But in those moments, in those weeks, in those months, I had felt completely abandoned. No one could help me. Not even myself.
But now? Now?When I finally have accepted it and have moved on with someone else who holds my heart?

"He is dead. You are dead. A part of me died with him. Take that and toy with it! Please." My voice falters and I am begging now. I cannot get the image of him over that metal inter-linking fence, telling me to run, to be free, without him. For him, out of my mind. A fresh reminder. So this is the punishment for falling in love again.

"Please." It comes out as a choke. The fire inside me is gone, deminished by the tears that threaten to blind me. He is dead. He cannot be real. He cannot be. He cannot be.

The ghost walks up to me and grabs my hand, places it over his heart. I did not know you could touch a ghost.

"Feel that?" he asks. I feel something, a steady beating, indicating life, but pounding a pumpful of lies into my listening ears. "I am alive, Lena. I am not dead."

A part of me is aware of Julian, standing away, completely confused and probably lost.
But I am beyond his reach right now.

"The-they killed him," I say, although my tone doesn't hold as much conviction to it. I try again. "He's gone. Alex is cannot come back for me. He cannot helpme. Someone else already has."

"Lena, I. Am. Alex."-I flinch-"I can tell you how I met you. I can tell you about the Mayor statue that holds our notes. I can tell you about the time a dog bit you. I know you still have the scar."

Pain drills through me, devouring me from the inside out, threatening to kill me. To sink me. He isn't real.

Is

...not

...Real.

"Stop," I say. He doesn't. "I can tell you about the Wilds when we watched the stars. I can tell you about the poetry I read to you as you visited my home. I can tell you"-

-"Please stop."

-"about Grace"- his voice takes on a desperate tone- "About your aunt. About your mother who broke from the Crypts. Who crawled through the O in LOVE."

"STOP!" I scream, snatching away my hand and stepping back. "You can'tdo this to me again."

A crease between his eyebrows appears, the one I know from so many different memories, places, causes. He draws out his words slowly, each as potent as the first. "You know I am real. You know I am alive." His eyes bore into my own. "I am breathing, Magdelena. He is not dead. I am not dead. I am right in front of you. Please, I know you know that I am really here, alive."

Something clicks inside of me and I do. I know he is not dead. I know ghosts cannot be touched. I know spirits cannot have heartbeats. I know dreams could have no beginning.

So I turn, away from him, away from Julian, and I do what I always do. What I have been doing. What I have always done. I run.
From my past. From my present.
From my future.
But now I run because all three are chasing me. Chasing me. Chasing me. They do not stop and I do not stop.
I.

...Just.

...keep.

...running.