Disclaimer: I don't own Bridge to Terabithia or 'The Scientist'. They belong to their respective owners.
Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
Five long years.
For him, everything seemed to have happened just yesterday. It was like a dream of sorts. A nightmare he so badly wanted to wake up from.
It took him five years to finally realize that he was in love – with her. Only her.
Leslie Burke.
A name so sacred, so pure that he could not dare utter it without feeling the pain and guilt he had been carrying as his cross for the past five years. Her laughter, taunts, everything about her haunted him. She was so enigmatic that he was ready to die for her, even at such a tender age. Jess didn't feel that his life was worth living for.
He loved to visit her at night, because it would be the only time where he felt like both of them were at Terabithia. He would just lie next to her, talk as if she was still there to talk to back, and feel as if he could feel her skin next to him. He didn't care if anyone would see him and call him a psycho. For his beloved Leslie Burke, he'd be willing to become one.
He wondered why, pondered upon why tears weren't enough to wash the guilt away. If only I had been there Les… But he wasn't. He was at some other place with someone else, enjoying the afternoon, the afternoon he should have spent with Leslie, and not her. Not that he blamed Ms. Edmunds for inviting him, he blamed himself. He already had that gut feeling before they left that something was going to happen, yet he just shrugged it off because he didn't want to spoil their 'date' as he remembered describing it. He should have been there when she fell, that way she should have been here. Alive, healthy, with him.
"I'm sorry," he said with a cracked voice, "I know every apology I make is fucking useless. It won't bring you back. It won't change what happened." He said with utmost sincerity, guilt, pain and remorse in his voice. Leslie would have slapped his arm for using profanity, just like what she did when he mentioned something about the weather bureau.
He touched her tombstone. So cold and so empty, just like him. He was alive, breathing, just like everyone else, but to him, he was just a mere reminder of what was once his human self. He was dead, just like her. He was the living dead, in literal sense. All he felt was anger and devastation.
He got a picture from his wallet, one that had him and her. They had such happy faces. They were so young and innocent back then… Yet that innocence was taken from her just too soon. "Of all the girls, of all people, why did it have to be you? Oh Leslie… I'm sorry I never told you how pretty, no, beautiful you were. And I bet you still are."
He wanted to see her giggle and blush, but that would never happen.