Ghost Story

I'm awake.

Quilted microfiber brushes smoothly against my fur like grass against marble as I stretch my legs.

I extend my arms over my head and across my pillow and pull. I catch my now-frizzled hair on it as I feel the still-present strain of yesterday's trek on my shoulders. It hurts, but it hurts good.

These familiar physical sensations rush past me as my eyes open, staring upward at the cathedral ceilings that had so divinely reverberated shouts of ecstasy only a few short hours ago.

A smirk forms on my face as I amuse myself with that last memory, and I smell my own breath between laughs. Tequila and chili powder. Palomas.

The lighting is often different here. But, today, it's a thin lightbeam poking through a single speck in her blackout curtains. It dances around the smoky gray mist in the air.

Thunder roars in the distance as the hammer of spring's reassuring rains so-mercilessly beats down around us, keeping the city air beneath our noses. I can hear droplets smacking the side of my princesses' tower windows.

She. My girl likes to call this, "shite weather."

I often just nod and grin when she says it. I know I was born for this.

I turn over quietly, cautiously twisting my hips slowly and laying on my side.

She's there. For the millionth time, the miracle I fall in love with on every new morning is there. I always wake up before her; a privilege I will never forsake.

I study her, that taupe-furred hourglass figure. That short, soft fur that always shines red in the evening. Her chest rising calmly. Seven stripes down her back; I always count them. Everytime.

What's she looking at? I marvel.

Beyond her, I see the doorway we barely bolted shut; the entrance to her inner sanctum I'd been trying to burst through for years. The remnants of a masquerade strewn about: two matching black dresses tossed to the floor.

For once, we didn't care to cover our tracks. We didn't care who was watching. And we didn't watch our backs; not a care in our little world.

The miracle occurs to me again. The miracle of the divines that lay beside me. That she chose me out of anyone! That she chooses to take a risk on me every moment of every day.

I content myself in the knowledge that she is perfect. The best animal among us.

And, this morning? She's everything I expect. All this in a blink.

Her head turns to me as her gold-lined eye's flicker mercifully. She keeps my rebellious nature in line.

A diplomatic personality, she gives me what I want, and it works. The smile I am addicted to, that wondrous glint in her eye. Positive reinforcement.

"You have to go now," she instructs, not a trace of regret in it. The predictable first volley.

"Kicking me out?" I tease, knowing the walls we built drove us to adopt certain rules.

I've been here before. Many times, actually. Any second now and she'll put on that little pout that makes me question my own rules.

She does it! Her muzzle and lips purse as she tilts her head and rolls her eyes.

"It's time, love," She says, more seriously than I can ever remember her saying it.

"Why?"

"You know why."

I ignore her chiding. my hand slides up against the softest fur on her bare thigh. She shudders and my fingers cross over, upward across her stomach. I swore off the warmth of another's touch, long ago. But I never lost the talent.

"A little make believe never hurt anyone," I seduce.

I always have a one-liner, and this time is no different. Though, she doesn't laugh or roll her eyes this time.

She sighs. Gods, I don't remember seeing her sigh like that before.

"I'm watching it hurt someone," my girl says.

I don't understand.

So, I try something more romantic instead. I pull myself closer, my bare chest to her back as she tenses up. I mold to her like putty, and she relaxes as I wrap myself around her. I can feel that stub she calls a tail come to life.

"I love you more than anything out there," I whisper into her small, half-oval ears.

She moans before chastising me.

"Love writes poems, it doesn't win wars."

Something in me is broken. No, not the usual items. Something new is broken. I lay there with her silently, left hand on her hip, right gently massaging her scalp.

"I don't want to fight it anymore," I confess, uncharacteristically.

Something is off. I know it now.

She nods, seeing through me completely.

"You just want to lay here forever," she finally says. There's no anger in her words; I know she does too.

"This moment."

"These moments!"

"It's a purgatory," she says, perplexing me. "It's worse than death."

"It's heaven, love," I answer, full confidence in my correction. It's always the truth, but I always forget what comes next.

It's a foggy script: she tells me to stay, 'Go ahead, waste the day with me.' Or, something like that. She tells me what I want to hear and I lap it up. Obediently.

Something is different. I can feel it. A thickness in the air that's never been here before.

"But, what would you know?" I challenge. The truth that I need to speak.

I never say anything like this. I don't know what's gotten into me. My heart slams around in my ribcage as I say the first words that come to my mind.

"You're just me," I say. It hurts to say it, but I was compelled to. I don't know why.

She smiles at me. Gods above, why did she smile at that?

"You have to do this without me," she says calmly, almost pleased.

I can't hear any more of this.

I push her off me. She lays on her back as I straddle her and pin her down. I'm stronger and she knows it. My hands press around her wrists; she does not fight back.

"Stop!" I demand.

She smirked, resolute in the truth that she never surrenders. I can never make her yield, that stubborn, beautiful bitch.

"Think of me and smile, every now and then," she continued. "Make new memories."

"You have to let me go," she begs.

I don't understand it. I feel the fury. I feel an unstoppable hate. At what, I don't know. I don't want to know.

"I won't," I say, lying to my love again.

I descend onto her. What was cold is warm now. I read her body and mind perfectly. She wants it, too, I can feel it. But, she thinks she has more to say.

We kiss. Once our lips touch, we slough off that thin veil of modesty we clung to.

My nails, hands and wrists slide down her stomach, poking into her tightly bound waistband.

"You have to fight!" she screams, freezing my freed inhibitions solid. My heart drops. The first time she'd ever said anything like that to me.

"I can't," I stutter between convulsing, staggered breaths. A rejection that feels somewhat true.

I release her. She counterattacks, holding my face with both hands as her face contorts into agony and her lips quiver.

I've ruined this. Whatever it was, it's too far gone. Ihope, I pray, that I can make it up to her tomorrow. I can give her the calming, typical morning she wants, tomorrow.

She grabs my hand and our fingers interlock. Hers are cold.

"There is no tomorrow for me," she says plainly.

At once, I understand. Though, the knowledge frees only me.

"I'm gone, Zeo!"

I don't know what to say. I freeze, the smell of fire and ash swirl around me. It's joined by the sickly sweet scent of burning flesh, something I've known since I was a little girl.

"I'm gone!" She screams.

It breaks my heart, but I know she just needed to refocus me.

"You need to fight," she begs as charcoal colored ash floats around me.

"You can't let her take you."

She squeezes my hand one last time as the flames nip at my feet. Somehow, she pierces the veil of incense surrounding us.

"I know you can do it," she says. One last smile.

From this moment, I am myself again. I am free; lucid.

I don't understand what she means. Not a word of it, but I can make my own decisions now. I can escape this monologue; these abstract texts.

"What are you talking about?" I ask, free to do so. Breaking mychains.

She doesn't answer.

"Ari, what are you-"

Nothing. She's gone.

Stillness. In what should be a moment of triumph, my peace is gone.

But, do not be confused: I am not lost. Do not mourn for me.

It's all different now, but it's still all the same, too.

For the millionth time, I have to confront the fact that my golden-eyed girl is gone.

And, for the millionth time, it hurts just as bad as the first.

Taken from me. From us. That everything I have seen was of my own machinations. Her image, voice and heart held a benevolent hostage within me.

But something is different now.

Now. There is no grand reset. No entropy. There is no fade to warmth or lantern-lit journeys. There's nothing left predestined in this greyspace, this shackleless prison I've narrated for you.

I am an animal between worlds.

A ghost in my own story.

I am awake.