Minutes Past You

Letting go can be the worst part of losing someone…

My name is Zim.

Nothing else.

I am an Irken invader sent from Irk to invade Earth.

For years, I thought this was the reason I was here on the planet.

But I'd been kicked off my own.

No one cared about me.

But everyone was happy to see me go.

I was banned from my own planet and was unable to even talk to my Tallest, Red and Purple, for years.

It was what I knew would be hell.

I never thought I'd meet a person who would care about me at all.

That is, until I met Zndria.

Zndria was the girl everyone teased and everyone hurt; though she never fought back.

I never heard her talk till a year after knowing her.

She was so silent all the time.

Yet so beautiful.

Even for a human.

Once I got her to speak to me, I learned more about the tall, human, girl.

What a shame I hadn't gotten to know her sooner.

Zndria became my only earthling friend.

We 'hung-out', played together, I even let her in my house and so on.

She was the only one-human or alien-to care for me.

And I cared for her.

So many years we'd spent together.

I began to look at her in a new light.

She was beautiful inside and out.

I thought I liked her but my mind told me no.

She liked my nemesis, Dib of Earth, whom I had known ever since I had arrived on Earth.

I wanted her to see me like I saw her: As more than friends.

As my mind told me no.

My heart told me yes.

I didn't dare go to skool most days, as I'd see her and Dib together.

How had the two opposites became a couple?

I had missed out on so much.

My friend didn't visit me daily like 'before'.

She was going to the local 'Baskin Robins' with Dib; playing at the park; laughing with him as well.

Everything I had did with her that couldn't be anymore.

I was just a bystander that watched them.

"Zim, let's go outside and do somethin'."

I had waited so long for those words again.

How long had I watched Dib and Zndria be 'couple'?

Too long, more than a year or possibly two.

Why had she chosen now to come to me?

To 'play' like before?

It didn't matter when she took my hand.

She asked me if I'd put my waterproof lotion on.

"Yes. Why?"

"It's raining."

Water on my skin had never felt so good as then as I stood hand in hand with my best friend below a huge thunderstorm.

We laughed and Zndria began spinning, I followed her.

We stared at each other, laughing, as we went in circles as if we were little earthlings, not a teenage human-girl and a small alien-boy.

"I haven't been able to be with you for so long, Zim."

"Is this make-up, friend, Zan?"

"Yes. I miss hanging out with you so much like before. Dib understood and canceled our date for tonight."

I remembered smiling, at the sound of her confusions, even at my enemy knowing Zndria missed her best friend forever.

I had felt good calling her Zan again. It had been an old nickname I had used for her.

Did it matter we came from tow different worlds?

Did it matter her kind were enemies of mine?

No.

It didn't.

Nothing did.

I barely felt it when she stopped and the rain poured down harder.

Her soaked hair glued onto her skin and tee.

She leaned down and put her back to me.

Like old times.

She smiled back as I put my arms around her neck and legs around her hips.

She got up, looked back and smiled.

She began singing a song.

"And I'd give up forever to touch you; 'cause I know that you feel me somehow."

I smiled as she began to walk slowly.

I sang along with her, I had heard her sing the song so many times to me.

"You're the closet to heaven that I'll ever be; and I don't want to go home right now."

Zndria began to run and we laughed. I kept a good grip on her shoulders as she sang. "And I don't want the world to see me; 'cause I don't think that they'd understand; when everything's made to be broken; i just want you to know who I am!"

Oh!

How I loved every second as the moment went by.

I saw Zndria take her camera from her pocket as we ran and snap a picture of us together.

She smiled and laughed.

If only I had known then what I knew now.

We stopped finally, when we were soaking wet and cars were rushing by.

Zndria looked back at me and let me off.

I sat on the side of the bridge we were on.

She sat next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder.

She snapped another one.

"How long have we done something like that?"

"About two years, Zan."

"I'm sorry it couldn't have been sooner."

"I don't care."

Zndria looked at me and then a grin broke her face.

I let one reply to hers.

I didn't except to lean forward.

To let loss my feelings that had been holding me down for so many years.

But I did do what I had only dreamt up in my wildest dreams.

I kissed her gently on the lips.

I felt like I was turning away from my old life, life as the invader Zim of Irk.

However, when I had been that, I had been lonely and helpless.

I was now Zim of Earth.

And Goddamn proud of it for the first time in my life.

When I let go, Zndria's hand shot to her lips and gently ran over them.

Her small blush played over her face, mixed with raindrops and soaked hair.

"Zi-Zi-!" she had began to say to me.

I felt my own green face break out in a blush of red.

I sighed heavily as I looked down into the water of the wide lake.

Why had I done such a stupid thing?

I knew Zndria was angered.

She had Dib.

That meant I had no one.

I was atleast realized of the fact I had wanted her for me so bad.

I felt a hand on my left cheek, and my head turned to the right.

I stared into Zndria's dark eyes.

"Zndria, I didn't mean to-!"

I felt her lips touch my forehead and she looked at me as if the world was focused on us.

"I knew something was up with you. You couldn't have just been sad to see me not with you."

I felt my eyes tear up for the first time I had ever felt them do it in my life.

Zndria's fingers wiped my eyes and she hugged me.

My breath let out as she did. I saw it swirl in a circle as it drifted off into the cold winter air.

"Dib and you are-!"

"Zim, I broke up with him. That is the truth. I didn't want to break your heart any longer."

My mind flashed images of Zndria and me in skool holding hands, kissing under moonlit evenings in the park, being friends like never before.

If only I had known better than to let my thoughts wander so far.

I never heard the real sounds it made when I come.

But I heard a sound like a camera flashing and Zndria let out a shriek, falling over and pushing us both into the lake.

We both screamed as the water hit our backs.

Zndria wrapped her arms around me and I closed my eyes to the world as she swam.

I never thought such bad things happened so fast.

Even when the best of things was happening to someone.

How stupid of me to expect we would just stand up and forget that had happened to us.

Zndria coughed and it forced my eyes to open up.

I gasped and went to my knees at her side.

My love gripped her stomach and she coughed up wild amounts of blood.

I did not know why she was doing this.

I didn't want to know why she was doing this even.

I propped her up, placed her head in my lap, and stroked her head.

"Zan?"

I heard nothing.

"Zan?! Zan, please speak to me!"

I heard a cough and her eyes slowly opened and a smile looked at me.

I squeezed her hand tightly as my eyes leaked.

Her hand gently wiped at my eye.

"Zim?"

"What?"

"See you-!"

"Zan, don't you dare!"

"-You…you in the next…li-!"

I cried harder as her eyes began to close.

I leaned her up and kissed her lips again as my tears kept falling.

Why had I thought a kiss would bring her back?

Stop the 'light' from coming?

If only I had known all along that this was going to be my last moments with my best friend forever.

My only friend.

The only human I loved or cared for.

And the only one who did back.

I cried and sang softly to myself her lost words as Zndria died.

"…And I don't want the world to see me; 'cause I don't think that they'd understand; when everything's made to be broken; i just want you to know who I am…"