She And He

It was at eleven o’clock in the morning that he was dead. I laid with him all night next to him in his bed until his heart gave out. The sound of his heart monitor flat-lining still rung in my ear, as if it were mocking me in the fact that he was dead.

            Earlier in that day, it was like any other; the two of us were sitting in math class, being taught some formulas that we would never use in everyday life. It was just all of the sudden that he keeled over in his seat. In the moments before he did so, he clenched the center of his chest and bent over in his seat a little bit. I saw this and asked him,

            “Are you okay?” He looked back at me as I leaned towards him. A forced smile spread across his face as he took away his hand, sat up straight and said,

            “I’m fine. It’s just a little heart-burn…that’s all.” I looked at him in a concerning way; I knew that he wasn’t okay…I just felt that he wasn’t. But I put this notion aside and sat myself back up in my chair to the way I was sitting before. He didn’t ask for me to say anything, as he and I just stared at the teacher who was doing some equation on the board.

            I wasn’t paying any attention; my attention was still drawn to him. When he clenched his chest, a pit of anger spread across his face. There is no way it was just heart-burn…heart-burn normally isn’t that bad. He never gets heart-burn either, so I started to suspect more. My concern for him also grew with my suspicion; if he was to be hospitalized for this, I would be thrown into sadness. I’ve had my friends hospitalized before when they said they were fine, and they tended to not…well…be okay, to put it lightly.

            He keeled over again, clenching his chest, his face spoke of even greater pain that what he had before. I put my hand on his shoulder and my mouth to his ear.

            “There’s no way heart-burn hurts that bad.” I whispered.

            “That’s the thing…” He nearly coughed out.

            “Do you need to go to the nurse’s office?”

            “Emily…” He said as he pitched over and fell onto the ground. I attempted to catch him, but my grasp didn’t envelope him. His body lay there on the cold, tile floor; his body not moving, and I wasn’t sure if he was breathing, let alone if he still had a heartbeat. I cried out his name in anguish, subconsciously hoping that he would wake up from my shout. But he did not wake; he didn’t shudder, he didn’t even twitch. He just lay there, so cold.

            “Somebody call 9-1-1!” I yelled. The rest of the class was stunned, but I heard people pull their phones out of their pockets and dial. I didn’t see them do this, as I fell to my knees to him. I held him up with my arms so that he was close to my body. If I would’ve known CPR, I would’ve performed it on him. But I didn’t know. That’s one reason I took courses on how to perform the life-saving procedure. It came into use a few times after this incident…

            An ambulance came quickly because of the close proximity that the school was to the nearby hospital. The paramedics came into the room with a stretcher and lifted him onto it. I followed with them. After a few feet of walking, they noticed I was following them

            “You have to stay here, ma’am.” One of the paramedics said.

            All that I did was stare at him; I let my eyes speak what I was thinking to him. Subtly, and I’m not sure why I did this, I pulled up the left sleeve of my long-sleeve shirt to reveal the multitude of scars that I had accumulated there. The paramedic somehow understood my body language. He signaled with his right hand to follow me, making a waving motion towards him.

            I followed the paramedics to the ambulance and I sat on the bench next to my dear man as he lay in the stretcher. I found his hand and held it so tightly in the both of mine; I didn’t want to let him go. The paramedics put an oxygen mask on his face so that he could breathe. They had a defibrillator on the ambulance and gave him multiple shocks to the chest to try and resuscitate him. On the third try, he came back for a moment, although that moment seemed to last for days from my perspective. His brown and hazel eyes opened to look at me, his grip tightening on my hands. He lifted his free hand up to his oxygen mask and ripped it from his face. He smiled at me for the last time he could.

            “I love you.” He said.

            Then his eyes closed again, and his grip on my hands disappeared. Tears could not pour out from my face fast enough as I held my dear man’s hand in mine. I wanted to scream, but the air in my lungs was not there; I was breathless. The paramedic wanted to say something to me, as I could see his mouth opening, but no words came out. As I stared at my dear man, with tears pouring down my face, his hand in mine, I said to him,

            “I love you too.”

            The ambulance doors opened as I said this; we were at the hospital.

 

            The morgue took in his body and tried to examine him. Apparently, the process of finding out what killed my dear did not take that long. After about three hours of me being left to cry in the emergency waiting room, a man in scrubs came to me.

            “One of the paramedics told me that you…” The man said.

            I looked up to him; my face was drenched in tears, with some mascara sprinting down my face as well. He knew my connection to my dear, but the man in scrubs wanted a verbal communication, not one of body language.

            “…were his girlfriend.” I said to him. “Yes. I still am in some way…”

            “He died of a sudden, uncaused heart attack.” The man said. “I’m very sorry…”

            “That’s what people are supposed to say…”

            He looked at me with a gaze of fear, and he walked away to go back to his duties. A short while after this time, my parents drove to the hospital to bring me back home. They didn’t ask any questions.

           

            That night, I didn’t sleep well. It took me a long time to get to sleep. Since the moment I had gotten home, I still cried. And I still was crying to this point. I didn’t think that my body could cry as much as it had been. Long ago, I thought I would’ve run out of tears, but apparently, running out of tears is a difficult thing to do. Eventually, I managed to fall asleep.

            But my dream, my dream was another thing altogether. I woke up in it; I woke up in a dream when I was in my bed, sleeping. It was raining in my dream, and I was under an overhang, hearing the rain fall and hit the ground around me. I was in my sleeping position, so I sat up to see my surroundings. I gazed out over the rain; it seemed to create a fog of torrents of water. It kept a thick veil in front of the landscape beyond the overhang. I remembered for a second something about the rain; I remembered that my dear loved the rain. He cherished it so; it was one of his favorite things. I remembered one time that we walked the roads surrounding the house I lived in and we were caught in the rain. I remember how he said that we shouldn’t run home, and that we should enjoy getting wet. I tried to object to him, but he kissed me in the rain anyway. After that, we walked, we didn’t run, home in the rain.

            In a moment, the rain cleared. I saw in the distance, my dear man. I ran to him, as he ran to me. We held each other in a long embrace, not wanting to let go. In the embrace, we said nothing; we could only hear each other’s cries of longing.

            “Why did you have to die?” I said as I cried.

            “I was supposed to…I can’t control when I die, no one can.” He replied back to me.

            “I miss you.”

            “I miss you too.” We looked at each other, and kissed for the longest time. After we were done, he smiled as he looked at me.

            “Let me show you this garden that I made.” He said. He held my hand and I held his as we walked through his beds of flowers. His garden was beautiful, with huge arrays of vibrant colors all sparkling in the finished rain.

            “Isn’t it beautiful?” He asked to me.

            “Yes, it is.” I said back to him, smiling.

            “This whole domain is my heaven; it’s where anything I will to happen can. I wanted to make this garden because I love the simple beauty of the flowers. They’re so elegant by just swaying in the wind and collecting dew on their petals. Their scents are beautiful too.”

            We smiled at each other as we walked through cobblestone paths that weaved through the garden. As we held each other’s hand, we gazed at the beauties of the garden. Then, we came upon a small hill that was partially covered in pine trees; they were only covering the hill so much so that it left a small semi-circle of green grass. We walked over to there and sat down on the grass.

            He kissed me and then started to talk.

            “Please, stay here with me.” He said. I looked at him with tears in my eyes again.

            “I want to…” I said.

            “You’ll be fine…your body is fine right now; your heart is beating, you’re breathing…you’re fine.”

            “But I couldn’t just leave the rest of my life behind. I want to see the rest of the world, I want to live the rest of my life, I want to die happy.”

            “I know you do…” His eyes were choking up with tears.

            “It isn’t that I don’t want to be with you…” I said.

            “I know that it’s the opposite…” He coughed out.

            “Please, don’t cry…please…”

            “If anything, just remember me.”

            “You know I would never forget you. I wouldn’t ever think of keeping you out of my mind…” I grasped his hand so tightly, “…and you’ll always be in my heart.”

            He smiled while tears streamed down his eyes.

            “Thank you.” His voice seemed to choke him as he said this.

            “I love you.” I said.

            “I love you too.” He replied. He kissed me. I closed my eyes to feel his lips upon mine, all of my worry fading away in that kiss. I thought about wanting to stay forever. But he knew I was thinking about that. I’m not sure how, though. I heard him say in my mind,

            “I’ll see you again, Emily, don’t you worry. Whenever you want to, just call my name in your sleep, and I’ll come to get you. This can be our haven; our secret hideaway. I’ll never leave here, and I’ll wait in this garden for you. I’ll play my songs and recite my poetry while I wait for you. I don’t care how long you’ll take; I would wait forever for you. I’ll see you soon, my dear.”

            Then, my alarm clock was blasting its noise in my ear. I sat up in my bed after I turned the noise off. I remembered being with him.

I smiled.

Reviews

[Joel M Frye]

Incredible write, Luke. There is nothing to add.

[MoonlitAngel]

aww. I think I'm going to cry and I've never cried reading a story on here.): This was unbearabley sweet and usually I would say more about it, and actually give review instead of just saying how wonderful it was, but omg, this was... :'(
So beautiful.

[Andy Ruffett]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The words flowed so well and the story was very believable. You have an excellent imagination and a great sense of imagery.

[Lily Mae]

An excellent story. The truth about life after life;) I think it flowed really well and it kept my attention fully. You captured her sorrow and later dream of him speaking to her really well. I hope to read more of your work, I really enjoyed this. :) x

[BeccaBelieved-]

Well written, strong storyline. Kept my attention all the way through; it didn't give me the chance to say 'This is boring' Keep writing

- Becca

[KAREN]

Strong plot, very sad, but has a happy ending! i enjoyed reading this!