And there's something hanging in the air, swaying above our heads. It's the knife you left for us, the string just barely strong enough to keep it from falling, from hitting one of us and bringing them down with you. And she holds me as I fall apart, my cries ripping my body open and letting most of the sorrow out. I say most because there is a part of me that still holds the sharpest part of the pain. My heart bleeds sadness but still it remains dark and unbeating. You took away my heartbeat when you pulled that knife along your wrists. You took away all the colour in my life and replacaed it with this anguish.
And still she holds me, cradling me as I yearn for your warm touch. She knows she will always hold me. She will always need to. Lavender and I will never be more than friends. Our hearts belonged to you and you alone. But now they belong to nothing and I feel detached, as though the anchor that was weighing me down, keeping me sane on this blasted thing we call an earth, has been cut free. And I am floating, higher and higher, screaming at someone to pull me back down. The sky is beautiful, but I don't want beautiful. I want to be back on the earth with my anchor. And then she helps me, with her kind words and her warm heart, and she tries to make it better, but it only gets worse.
"*I've read that if an avalanche buries you and you're lying underneath all that snow," she says, her voice breaking as the tears fall down her face as well, "you can't tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise.* You couldn't have helped him, Dean. Seamus had to dig himself out. You couldn't have helped him."
That's a lie. I could have helped him. He was my best friend. I could have stopped him. I lean into Lavender and cherish the fact that the same arms that are wrapped around me were once wrapped around him. He, who couldn't get past the flashes of war he lived in every day. He was buried by the horrors of his past, like Lavender said. They came crashing down like an avalanche. And she holds me as I weep and cry for the life you took. Your life. You don't understand what it's like to be a survivor of this. The knife you left, hanging above our heads, I want it to fall. I want it to fall in such a way that I can be reunited with you. Because I don't think I can live without you. And she holds me as if she knows that. And she holds me as if she feels the same way and I. Just. Can't. Stop. Crying.
I will never stop crying.
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This is written for the Khaled Hosseini Quote Challenge by MissesWeasley123 – the quote in question is in between asterisks is from And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. This is also written for the Friendship Challenge by kenpo (I don't know if it's very evident, but that's all I've got). This is also written for a girl I knew who was simply wonderful. She's flying in the sky now, but I hope she knows we miss her and love her. She was the inspiration for this story.
In loving memory of Mill. RIP.