I watched her shivering beneath her blankets while she slept. The hairs on the nape of her neck stood like midnight on a clock face. Each breath she let out was a short-lived handful of fog, disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared. A single tear rolled down her precious face, marking her pillow like a calendar of lost days. We were both so lost. I looked to the side of the bed where I used to sleep, thinking that if it had been her, I would have left her side empty as well. I wanted to go back to that spot, if only to keep her warm, but my body was of no such use anymore.
I felt myself fading as the sun rose. I was always afraid that she would sense me somehow, and wake up unable to move. It has happened before. She laid there; sweat laminating her forehead, choking for breath. She looked right at me, her terrified eyes unable to recognize me as I was, until at last, I depart, allowing myself to be inhaled into the night. The last thing I hear is her breathing in, and then nothing. I become starlight.
Within this ethereal state, I can hear her speaking to my grave like an echo in my entire non-body. She tells me about my family. How my father is doing his best to keep my mother from falling apart, but he won’t let her see his fractures from my absence. She tells me about work, how kind everyone is. All the love and support from her friends and relatives keeping her afloat. When she talks about her days, she tells me about things she knows I would have liked. Sometimes she laughs, and I almost feel alive again. It’s when she talks about being at home, though, that I feel like breaking apart. She says she has trouble sleeping, and that sometimes she wakes up in the morning, tears in her eyes, shaking, and it’s all she can do to get herself back up.
I want so desperately to tell her, I never meant to haunt you, my love. I don’t mean for the both of us to be restless. I’m just afraid without you. I’m afraid of the emptiness.
She is always crying before she leaves my grave. The twinkling in the stars is just my quivering.
Still I continued to visit her. She looked like an empty tree in the moonlight. She slept like white noise between channels. Each time I saw her, she looked more and more like a photo from a box camera. I knew I had to move on; To let her heal, without me.
At my grave, she tells me how she dreams of me almost every night. She says I always look so very much alive. In the park where we met, I’m playing my guitar, fumbling with the chords for some song I could never quite remember, but I loved playing it anyway. She would call out my name, but I’d keep singing. She said it was a different song each time. She tells me how she knows I must be happy wherever I am. Even if I could help it, I would let her continue to believe that was true. Sometimes stars go out.
The last time I visited her, she was already awake. The bedside lamp was on and she was sitting ragged on the mattress, our engagement rings in her hand. She was gospel with a heartbeat. But as soon as I arrived, she became anxious. Goosebumps vandalized her arms and she shuddered. She began to look around, glancing over at where I was, becoming more unnerved as the moment continued. Even with all the love I am still able to feel, and all the love I knew she had for me, it devastated me to know that my unnatural presence could never be a comfort to her. I was only causing her dread. I was haunting us both.
Eventually, the dread became too much, and she left the room to call someone. After a minute, I heard her car start, and she was gone.
I stood in that room alone for hours. Without her there, it felt cold. All the color was being washed out, and I knew that I didn’t belong in this world anymore. I took one last look at the vacant spot where she slept, and then breathed myself back into the emptiness.
There were hundreds of falling stars that night.
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