Thanks for the reviews, everyone! Please continue R/R!
___________________________________
Six
"Monica?"
Rachel took a tentative step into Monica's room, sitting down slowly on the bed, not wanting to disturb her.
"What?" came the muffled reply. Rachel rubbed Monica's back through the covers.
"I wanted to talk to you," she said hesitantly. There was brief pause before Monica turned onto her back to face Rachel. "What?"
Rachel looked down at her hands and chewed her lip nervously. She exhaled and looked at Monica.
"I'm sorry," she said simply. Monica frowned, "Okay..."
"I'm not very good with words, with subtlety and all that, so I'm just going to go right out and say it. I'm sorry for everything. I know that all this is because of me and..." her voice trailed off as she fought to quell a lump in her throat.
Monica, I thought, tell her it's not. It's nobody's fault...
"Rachel, honey, I don't blame you," Monica said gently, finally looking Rachel in the eyes. The latter flinched when she saw how bloodshot her eyes were, how tearstained her face was.
Rachel pulled something out of her pocket. It was the box with the engagement ring on it. "You should keep this safe."
Monica took the box slowly, her fingers clenched it. I felt as if her fingers were wrapping around my now still heart.
"Monica... please don't hurt anymore," Rachel begged.
Monica didn't care about pride anymore. She was too exhausted to bother with her facade. The tears sprang forth once again.
"I don't know how to feel anything else anymore," she said. She wiped her eyes. "I can't talk right now. I need to be alone," she explained. Rachel nodded and got up.
"I know this is the worst thing I can ask, but... Please come with me to see Derek," Rachel asked. Monica gasped audibly.
"Rach..."
"i know, I know it's the worst thing for you to do now, but... Mon, he needs to speak to you. And... Oh God, Mon, if there were any other way to say this... Any other way to handle this situation..." Rachel mumbled, mentally scolding herself for being so insensitive.
Monica felt the velvet of the box and sighed, "Just for a moment."
Rachel gave her a small smile and walked out of the room.
After Rachel walked out, Monica sank back onto her pillows, putting the ring box on the nighstand. She once again, cried herself to sleep.
Just take it one step at a time, baby. One step at a time.
"If this is heaven, where is God?" I asked Greg. He shrugged. "I haven't met him. I don't think he exists and I've been dead sixteen years."
Greg looked around the apartment. "Your home is nice. Are you saving this for your friends?" "How could there be a heaven without God?"
Greg sat down on the couch. It was still the strangest sight to see a friend I had lost during childhood walking around a place I had called home in adulthood.
"Is this even heaven? How do we know where we are? Look at this place. This was your life. If they say death is a punishment, then guess what this is. Haven't you noticed the longer you've been dead, the less of yourself you're able to grasp?"
I leaned against the kitchen table. "I don't know what you mean."
"When you're alive, you're consumed with emotion. You have people around you who make you care. You feel things. Some feel more violently than others. You follow me?"
"So far."
"In heaven, what is there to care about? There is no point beyond where we are. We're stuck in a place where we can create entire universes for our own pleasure but have no one to share them with. And when the people you love finally die, who's to say they're going to want to be in your heaven?"
A slow coldness was beginning to creep over me. What kind of place was this? What happened to fat cherubs with harps?
"That's not the worst that could happen," Greg continued, his child eyes looking at me with the intelligence of a man wiser than any intellectual I had ever known.
I stared at the ground for a moment, afraid to ask the question. But I needed to know the answer. "What's worse than not spending eternity with the people I love?"
Greg cast a sympathetic glance at me before looking out the window to the street below. He turned back.
"I really dont want to be the one to be telling you all this. Not now, you're too new. You'd be overwhelmed."
Frustration mounted. Even if Greg was a grown man, he still had the physique of a child; I couldn't bring myself to yell at him.
"I need to know," I pleaded.
He sighed and nodded. "Monica is grieving now, but who's to say that the pain won't eventually become dull? She still has a whole life ahead of her. There is a good chance she could meet someone else. That someone else could make her as happy as you did."
"But I want that for her..." I said slowly, no longer sure what it is I was really feeling.
"Because you love her. You think, and I'm sure she does too right now, that someday in the distant future, after she's led a full life, she'll return to you after death." "She loves me," I said lamely.
"Yes. She probably always will. But she could find another person she wants to spend her life with. After a lifetime, they might want to spend eternity together too." He shrugged helplessly. "I didn't want to tell you."
The words sank in slowly. What happened to feeling only happiness in heaven? What happened to bliss? Death was not supposed to be more complicated than life.
"Then this wouldn't be heaven! Not without Monica!" I exclaimed. Greg flinched at my outburst, "I'm sorry."
He sat back down on the couch again. "See why there is no God?"
I realized what he was saying now. My mouth became dry and I choked on my words.
"Because those we love ultimately decide whether we live in heaven or hell."