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“Are you here to greet me because I’ve died?” I asked.
“Not at all.” He slid his hands up to my face, gently touching me there. The vibration increased until I buzzed throughout my entire body from my toes to the crown of my head. “I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. I’m here to tell you that no one ever is. I’m here to tell you that you should stay.”
The rain tapped against the roof. Another burst of thunder shot through the sky. I leaned into our embrace, pulling his arms around me as tightly as I could. My heart welcomed him in a way I never had in person, the feeling much stronger than anything I recalled from our past together. A safety from the energy presently cocooned around our bodies.
I shut my eyes.
We fell away together, and everything seemed to fade away.
* * *
In the morning, I woke with a loud gasp. The light beat down on me, and I sat up. All alone in my bed, I gazed around the room, almost expecting to see Jamie here somewhere. But that would be silly.
The only thing joining me this morning was the greatest hangover I’d ever experienced in my entire life.
200 words down. 18,800 to go.
Chapter Fifteen
Sixteen Years Before
The laughter from the other students filled the enclosed space as another dude finished performing a comedy routine.
Feedback from the mic at the front echoed through the cafeteria. A girl I knew from German class swapped places with the guy. She stood on a riser behind the mic, nervously clasping a piece of paper by her side. The energy shifted from jovial to somber in the flash of an instant.
The lights were dimmed, as they had been since the event started an hour ago. Someone had decorated the room with lanterns which hung from the ceiling. Each filled with a tiny tealight that sparkled. Giving the effect of a room filled with twinkling stars.
This was Stony Point’s annualInkwell. Always held in the coldest month of the year. When no one wanted to walk from the dorms over to the cafeteria. But, without fail, the event always drew a large crowd. Tonight, the student body was invited to read their poetry, short stories, and sample chapters from books. Or, in the case of the performer who had come before with the comedy bit, apparently standup was now a thing people were doing, too.
I’d never read at this thing before. I doubted I ever would. But I always showed up without fail. Usually, I found a seat in the back—as I had this year—and quietly observed.
From one writer to another… Dad had said last summer before he died. Now that he was gone, unfinished manuscripts left sitting on his computer hard drive, a part of me needed to carry the baton, as they said. Something inside of me itched to get up on that stage and announce to the world that, since my dad had died, I’d labored over my very first manuscript while simultaneously studying and working on school papers at Stony Point. But I remained quiet. Fiddling my thumbs and noticing that no one else had bothered to join me at my table.
“I wrote this poem about a bad job experience I had over the summer…” The girl continued speaking, but I tuned her out as she glued her eyes to the page and read her work.
A camera clicked from the back. Once. Then, multiple times in a row.
I craned my neck and gazed behind. Jamie stood along the back wall, snapping photos of the girl on the stage. His blond hair curled at the ends, more so than usual, as he stared into the viewer of the camera. His beige trench coat opened in the middle, revealing his Stony Point uniform polo shirt.
After he captured his final photo, he let the camera drop. It fell to his chest, suspended by the thick strap strung around his neck.
I realized too late I stared a little too long.
Jamie caught my gaze. He glanced back, cocked a sad smile, and then turned away. He tilted his head down toward the display on the DSLR, flipping through photos as if I wasn’t sitting nearby.
I hesitated for a moment, then I took a deep breath and stood. Walking over to the back wall where he stood near the doors.
“Hey,” I whispered, stopping once we were shoulder to shoulder. Jamie continued staring down at his camera.
“Hey,” he murmured.
“Are you okay? It’s been awhile. I haven’t seen you.”
“Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m fine… just been busy with school stuff.”
“Oh, yeah. I totally understand. Well, cool.”
“Yeah. Just taking a few pictures for the yearbook.” He scrolled through the photos of the guy who had done the comedy bit. The boy in the pictures grinned, a scene that completely contrasted with the emotions between Jamie and me at present. The awkwardness enveloped us like a cloud so thick I nearly choked. I shifted back and forth.
