The sun rose like a tight insult today.
Though paralysed I lifted the blanket over my head and begged it to set again, to swallow me whole this time. It shouldn't get to be morning when he doesn't.
Zane deserved the light — I don't.
And do you know? If you listen closely, grief has a heartbeat. Normal hearts have rhythmic or at least some strange tinge of tune.
But mine? It stutters every time I remember I didn't save him. And God knows I should have.
At any cost.
At any cost.
Because how could I? How could I have not saved the one person I could forever entrust my entire life upon?
The one person for whose sake I could risk it all; everything this world has named as mine, and more.
My breath, life and any other signatory treasure.
Anything.
Just to see him smile, and breathe in his passions.
And if that was the case, truly, why did I have to lose this miserably?
Why did I fail miserably in keeping him safe?
In saving him?
How could I? Dare do anything other than save the life of my soul? How could I have ever failed at saving my heart?
The blinds have been closed for a strict couple of hours daily, for a total of seventy-six days.
Every time the nurse would try opening them I would do something to oppose, and now they've all given up I guess. At certain times they let me have them closed.
The light seemed scaldingly true to me.
Because in the dark, I could almost remember the exact shape of his mouth when he called me his sweetheart.
The gentle plastic click of curtain hooks being pulled apart ruptures me whole. It's such a normal sound, right?
But — it rips me open.
Because of the light.
It just reminds me how unearthly real everything is, how I will have to stand here stranded skinless on this shrewd strand of reality, one which keeps bruising my already battered self.
My heart sank with the otherwise sweet humming of the nurse who was in charge of my bed.
She was humming under her breath, but it still felt as though she was jabbing straight at my heart.
Perhaps all too oblivious to how my heartbeat spikes at the invasion of light.
I had a sinking feeling as her footsteps approached the right side of my bed because it was where the window was.
And right as I guessed, she did end up opening them.
And just like lightning flashing sunlight kissed the foot of my bed with its sharp wings.
I had a sharp desire to drag the blanket over my eyes and just disappear but my hands felt too heavy today.
"Good morning, Lena. It's a beautiful day. Let's let some light in, hmm?" Her soft voice clashed with the cover of my blanket and somehow the voice still made it into my ears, despite the heaviness of the blanket.
Beautiful day huh? How dare she say that when the world felt so wrong without him? When breathing itself coincided with my existence felt so-so utterly wrong?
She pulled the blanket from above my head and started moving around. Going over to my other side, she started fixing the flowers, straightening them maybe.
Checking my IV drip she called someone, "Why haven't you changed the water in the vases yet Derick?"
And I couldn't help but wonder- 'Does cleansing always help erase things? And start anew? Can it help the entire placement of some events in life, like they never existed?'
The nurse's voice started talking to me again, "Your mother's visiting today. She has something for you. Good news, maybe isn't it?" I don't quite know for sure why she does this, forcing a smile and continuing to chat about anything and everything she could possibly ever find.
A forced smile which acts as a desperate attempt to conceal the rawness of her pity stitched over helplessness. In my state.
And maybe, just maybe she does care.
Maybe.
But I wish she had even a tinge of an idea, about how this sunlit room she thinks will act so positively for me is actually a perfect epitome of a suffocating coffin filled with a million needles filling into the already bleeding dagger marks.
Before the nurse could speak any more to sound genuine, the door clicked open and I knew who it was just by the perfume.
Lilies.
It once used to be my favourite one, but now nothing seems to quite soothe the burning sensation of not wanting to be alive anymore.
Now lilies and her smile felt faintly bitter than it ever had before.
Sure enough, it's my mom.
She pauses at the threshold, almost afraid to step any further, any sharper. "Lena?" She calls me, so carefully as if she said it any other way the name itself might break.
Along with the illusionary belief everyone seemed to be demonstrating that everything will get alright, since I am not dead yet, that everything can start over again since I survived.
And got lucky enough to have gotten my life back.
I didn't look at her.
My head was turned in the direction of the window.
And I didn't even notice when it started raining already.
Perhaps everything in life changed this quickly? 'Perhaps nothing ever holds a stance strong enough to deny the uncertainty life beholds?'
Like its that easy to go from a healthy breathing human to being someone people only remember as the 'unlucky one' who couldn't survive something fatal, and before you know it, that person would only ever rarely be recalled.
Perhaps only ever at their funeral.
Before their entire existence is slowly rubbed off, from the entirety of this world.
My eyes were stuck on the last rain streak still left on the window — like a lingering phantom from last night's storm.
My mother sat on the edge of the bed with the ultimate care, like I might shatter if she applied any more force. Holding her phone in her hand — it was trembling.
"Sweetheart, I found something." Her voice was hushed. "From him."
She referred to him like it was a curse she couldn't swallow.
Tapping the screen she continued, "A voice recording." The blue glow flickered, "You should hear it. Maybe it will help you. . . move forward."
My chest tightened.
Like my lungs were shrinking space inside, as a final desperate attempt to unalive my soul. 'For what's there to live when everything inside is this deeply ruptured, so much so that even the blood refuses to show up red anymore?'
If I hear him speak, it will be the last time.
If I hear him, I'll lose him for good.
If I don't, maybe he's still here, humming under my skin?
A single tear slips from the corner of my eye but I did not sob — I don't remember doing that ever since. . .
Perhaps I never got a good enough chance to.
Without countless people present all around me to goggle at me crying at my misery. To fill their satisfactory.
As soon as she tried shoving the phone into my hands, the cold metallic hit me like a bullet. It felt like I was being scalded naked. Again and again.
Nothing gave me the space to ever for once forget the loss I have undergone. That I did end up losing him, harder than anyone ever should be losing their hearts.
I flinched hard while she continued trying to have me hold the phone, and my fingers automatically curled away. Nails dug deep into my palm. My only defense.
"Please, Lena. Just listen to him once. You can't stay like this. It's not healthy." My mom's raw, frustrated voice came rushing to me, breaking all the acts from before.
My mind flickered back to Zane's face that one last night: rain dripping dangerously loud from his hair, deafeningly loud eyes that wouldn't meet hers.
'Don't', he had said.
I had obeyed him then.
I obeyed him in the past multiple times before too.
I have always been obeying him and his words. Perhaps that's the exact reason why today, at this exact moment he is dead.
The door opened again, and the nurse walked back in to check something — My mom stood up dejectedly defeated seeing her.
And with visible frustration in all her actions. She checked me one more time before turning to the side.
Leaving the phone on the nightstand beside me, she turned around and left. Without once looking back.
Something everyone around me has been doing a lot ever since I woke up, after that night, surrounded by these dead mundane walls.
People come only to give fake sympathies to show they care, but at the same time they can't wait to just get away, and no longer have me in my most miserably pettiest state in front of them.
I waited till the nurse finished adjusting my pillow and the boy named Derick refilled the vase and placed the flowers in it.
And the nurse re-checked everything thrice before they all finally left.
Right as the door shuts close, I slid my hand slowly, painfully towards the nightstand— the only thing I can still remotely move.
My IV drips and all the needles attached to my entire arm stung me bitterly, but they were nothing compared to the anguish which breathed inside me.
I nudged the phone under my blanket. Pressing it to my ribs like a relic.
In a tiny desperate attempt to feel its warmth, pretending it was his heartbeat.
***
It was evening, and thankfully the room was dark again. Only the distant neon hum of hallway lights existed, which were barely visible from underneath the door.
I was alone in the room, and the lights were almost all turned off, except for a small dim radiance, one at the other corner of the room, somewhere near the door.
My eyes trailed at the window, tracing shadows rippling in the glass— mimicking subtle shapes stripped straight from my memory.
And that's when I saw, him . . .
His outline was somewhat smudged against the storm glass. His hands were in his pockets. Head bowed.
Exactly like that night.
My lips shivered, wanting to call him. But the words never made out of my mouth. I was trying to call him, say his name, shout for him, but somehow no sound came out of me.
It felt like if I tried any harder, my throat would crack like old porcelain. But even when I did, I couldn't call him. . out loud. Even when his name rang like an urgent prayer, screaming at my reflection only in my mind.
I was short of breath. My chest was unfortunately rising only to fill the gap of oxygen, from all the breathless attempts I was taking to call him.
Even for once. Just to let him know I was here calling for him, thinking about him.
I slid my fingers over the phone I had hidden underneath my pillow, pressing it tighter to my ribs.
My insides were bursting with helplessly anguished tears mixed with the metallic taste of blackish-blue blood, but I rendered myself incapable of shedding any more than a few tears.
Ones which would barely ever count as weeping.
Inside my head, my voice echoed with a soft as a dying breath:
'Stay with me, Zane.'
'Please don't leave me tonight.'
'Please'
But alas, despite all the aching wounds being beaten up to be fresh again and again, I still couldn't get my words to the boy outside, let alone have him hear me calling for him.
Even once.
That night I had to close my eyes without being able to make any sound to prove his everlasting existence in me.
And sunk back into the grave I had built inside my own chest.