I'm afraid of looking at the pictures on the walls. I'm afraid to see your face looking back at me. I know if I look, I will not be able to stop the tears. I was always weaker than you.
But I have to go on for the others, if not for me. I drag myself out of bed each day and I go through each day. I try not to think of you, but pieces of you are every where… A black t-shirt, your laptop, which I still can't bear to get rid off. A picture of you, or a simple memory…it just makes me fall apart.
For a week I just didn't even leave your bed, I just laid there, submerged in the memories of you. The pain was unbelievable. For the first time in months, Angel came to me, me. Angel cried on my shoulder, and kept saying she was sorry. I was sorry too. The pain of losing everything had shown me something. That I could pull through, if I tried. But just then, I couldn't even muster the strength to do more than hold her while she wept.
The flock doesn't know what to do with me. They come to sit with me sometimes. Iggy mostly. We won't let Dylan into the room.
I haven't spoken in days; the silence is heart breaking though. It reminds me of you. I can't bring myself to look around the room I now inhabit. So I keep the lights off, in a silent grieving blackness, which in its bitter irony, reminds me of you.
I know that the pictures of you adorn every hall, the flock's way of keeping you around. I ventured out once, and saw a picture of you. The one from my 13th birth day. We were covered in cake, absolutely smothered in frosting, but still smiling and hugging. I clamped my hand over my mouth and cried. Nudge found me there. She didn't say anything, and just led me back to your room and sat with me holding me as I cried. The pain of losing you is everywhere. I can't get away from it; it's in the very walls. An inescapable wave of subtle pain, which would unexpectedly pull me under and drown me.
There is an inescapable tension that hovers over the house now. Without you here, it all seems to bright, and that makes me sad. Knowing that you are really gone sends me into another wave of pain crash down on me.
I sit now and stare out the window, it is late…and I know I should be asleep, but the stars call to me. I trace Orion's belt, and the Big Dipper. We spent countless hours out on the cliff top when we were kids, with Jeb's 'Big book of constellations!' learning the stars, to always find the way home. Before bed every night, just before we would go inside…we would make a wish…"I wish I may, I wish, I might make a wish on this star tonight." Always the North Star.
I never asked what you wished, and you didn't ask me either. Now I sit with tears falling in abundance down my face. Wishing that I might know what you wished for.
The night sky is like black velvet, with thousands of tiny holes punched through the fabric, providing the only light in the entire world. It makes me think of all the times that we snuck out of the house when we were younger, playing in the sky, thousands of feet off the ground. Our laughter had filled the skies, making the world below spiral away. Those were the only times that I can so vividly remember, our secret night flights. They were so special that even to this day, no one knows of them but us.
I can remember each and every time that I almost lost you, the first time on the beach, where we shared our first kiss.
The second time at the beach, when Ari sliced you up like deli meat. We had to get you to a hospital, and then the following weeks at Ann's. Seeing you and the Red-haired wonder.
The split, us fighting over Ari. So stupid I see now. All I wanted to do was hug you but before I got the chance you were flying away, with half of my flock, my right wing, and half of my heart.
And then, in the home of Doctor God himself. You…pale and cold in that cot, I pounded on your chest, crying. Then I saw the needle of adrenaline, without thinking I plunged it into your heart.
Now it all seems so far away. Because now, you're gone again. And this time you won't be back. I can feel the tears budding in my eyes. Feel the lump beginning in my throat. I swallow back the tears, feeling like I just swallowed a fist of clay.
I shake my head and look back out the window. I can almost see you, passing like a shadow over the moon. You were always the most graceful, so silent and quick. You used to glare at me, when I called you beautiful. But it was true. You were beautiful… It always made me so amazed that you could still be the person that you were when we had gone through it all, but that was the best part. We went through it together.
You always promised that it would never change. I guess even promises from the one you love can be broken…
You taught me how to love, and how to live life. Before you opened me up, I was scared on the inside. There was no light to break the dark. But when you smiled…I felt hope. For the briefest moments I felt hope. But then it would be gone, when you took my hand…and my heart… I was so happy, but now…. That's the past.
It's been almost a year now. I have gotten better, the pain didn't get less, more that I had gotten stronger and could now deal with it. There are always those times, like the kids birthdays…our birthday. The anniversary of coming out for the first time. Our anniversary. Iggy plays the radio in the kitchen, mourning, noon, and night. And sometimes our song will play… I was singing it yesterday,
It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart The smile on your face lets me know that you need me All day long I can hear people talking out loud The smile on your face lets me know that you need me The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What's being said between your heart and mine
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
There's a truth in your eyes sayin' you'll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all…
I almost cried, I was listening in the kitchen….When Iggy came in and recognized the song. He just sat with me, as I sang along…
I never knew how much I would need you… But everyday I find that I can still drag myself out of my bed. I know that you would have yelled at me for being weak like this, but I can't help it. Without you around I'm just not myself. I wish that I could be me; I wish I could be Maximum Ride, kick ass flock leader. But without you…I am nothing.
I will never love another. I made that a promise to myself the day you left. I know it sounds silly now, but I remember when I was little I planned my wedding…But you were always the groom, because you would never break my heart. Or so I thought But now, I don't have a heart to break. Cause you took it with you.
I want to go after you, but I know that I'll never find you. And even if I did I would lose you again after awhile. And that hurts more than waiting for 20 years. I know that if I try I can wait for you…I will always wait for you. Because I love you…I find it bitter irony that I can say it so easily now, but when you were here…the thought of telling you terrified me. When you lose everything is when you realize what you had.
I thought that if I loved you, then you would break my heart. And you did. Just not in the way that I expected, not at all. I thought that we would one day break up and you'd take half the flock away… It turns out that I had to fear more than that. I lost me when you left, how can I live for 20 years without my right wing, and my heart?
When we were little still in cages, you would hold my hand through the cage bars. The touch of your hand after a long day would be like a promise, I will always be there. But you aren't.
The sky is always empty to me. All because you're not in it. I want you to come home, everyone does. Dylan tried to apologize, but I slammed the door in his face. You would have laughed…
It was rare if you laughed at all. But I can remember the few times that you allowed yourself that pleasure…I remember the day that we were trapped in the hurricane in Miami, I mean seriously! Bird seed? Really? You laughed so hard you were crying. I can still remember your face.
And when we found Iggy in Ella's room wearing one of her Bras. You just stared, then bust out laughing. And just like that we were on the floor from laughing so hard. I just loved that Iggy would be that stupid.
But then again it is Iggy, now isn't it? The same Iggy who instead of letting us out of the trunk that we were trapped in just made perverse jokes about it. Or how about the time they locked us in the closet. I mean how low can they get? The Flock was just shamelessly trying to get us together at this point. But they're family and knew what was best, or so they say…
But none of it matters, because you're gone again. And this time I can't get you back.
We made a promise that we would never fall in love, for the Flock. But our hearts had other plans. I just wish that we could have kept that promise so that you would still be here. I would give it all up if you were here. But you aren't. And you never will be. Because 20 years is just too long. I won't make it. I know it. No one can live 20 years with out there heart.
It's not really that I cant live with out you; it's just that I don't wanna even try. Because you are my life, if I had to choose between you and the flock, I will admit that I would choose you. It's wrong but it's true.
They say that once you fall in love it's like a mental disease. I agree whole heartedly, because without you I go insane. I'll be in a mad house in a few days at this rate. I know that I should move on, but I can't. I won't. I'd rather die. Loving someone else it a vile thought. No one is you…and that's all I want, you. I just can see that now more clearly than ever. And that in itself is cruel, that just what you begged to know, and I could never answer but now I know…and your not here to hear the answer of your long awaited question.
You.
I want you.
But now you'll never know….