AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah well…” He clasped his hands together once more, grip tighter than it had been the last time. Once more, the glow around his body flickered. “I caught up with her in the store later that night before she left. She said she’d talk to me about the letter… after our shift was done. You know, in person.”
“To try and work things out?” I asked.
“I… I’m not sure. Maybe. Maybe not. She was just… off during that whole conversation. Anyway, after I got off work, I tried to find her. She ended up ghosting me… to screw another dude. I found out from another coworker the next day about the other guy. Since, of course, the gossip worked its way around that goddamn store.”
He took a breath, the light around his body dimming as he finished the story. Then, he added, “That’s what it had really been about. She found someone else.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“I know.” His voice broke as he said the words. Then, he burrowed his face in his hands, the next words muffled. “It isn’t like I didn’t deserve it. After the way I treated you.”
“No one deserves to have their personal shit blasted through work,” I said. “I don’t care what our history was. No one deserves a Dear John letter while working the register. Or to find out from another coworker that their significant other is with another person.”
“Yeah…” His words trailed off into nothing, as empty as the pit in my stomach. “Tom. Our Assistant Manager. He’s the one she went for. She quit, they ended up moving in together. Getting married. I never saw her after that really. Then, a few years later… a few weeks before the end of my life. I mean, the end of my physical life.”
He paused, his eyes searching me. Then, he said, “Danielle came into the store. I… I mean… she… she was pregnant. That isn’t why I did it… but…”
“It didn’t help,” I offered.
“It didn’t help,” he repeated. “And… it served as another reminder… that I would die alone. That I always messed things up with the people I loved.”
As theLword rolled off his lips, my brows crinkled. However, before I had the opportunity to ask him what he meant by that—obviously he hadn’t ever loved me—he hugged his knees into his face and his body started to shake. The shaking increased until his body broke into a fit. As he sat there, the flickering around his body went haywire—like a light in a motel hallway which keeps flickering on and off. Without asking, I set my cup down on the floor and positioned in front of him and pried his hands away from his face. Tears welled within his eyes and glistened his cheeks.
His expression entirely unreadable, looking more fearful than anything else. Fearful that he was exposed, I guessed. Exposed in front of me, of all people.
I brushed my fingers along his face, feeling the electricity between us, not just from the energy emitting off him.
“You didn’t know how to handle all the terrible things,” I said, unsure of what else to say. Trying my best to comfort a person I never had to comfort before. Comforting a person for issues that ran deeper than I could even imagine. Did he even want me to comfort him? I was only guessing at this. Only able to understand based off my own life and what I would’ve wanted someone to say to me in his shoes. My voice grew nearly as soft as a whisper. “I don’t know many of the details. But… I know this… this world… it’s not easy.”
His hands snaked their way around my back, and he sank into my chest, my arms cradling his neck. His body relaxed into mine, though the frequency between his shakes increased. Jamie curled into a ball. I pulled him in more tightly, burying my hands in his thick hair. My entire being began to vibrate along with his, our bodies melding together once more, though in an entirely different way than that one moment we shared back in school.
Once again, we reached our own boiling point, the water splashing out over the pot, Jamie’s tears bubbling over. He cried for his pain, he cried for mine. He shook for the both of us, for both of our shitty lives and states of being, letting it out into the unknown ethers of the universe. For the first time, I wondered if that’s why he’d come. To help take away the pain. To take it into himself. To be the bearer of a doubly painful existence so that he could save me.
Or, if maybe—just like he’d said—even after people left their physical bodies, they still struggled with all the demons they’d accumulated during their time here. Maybe his demons still attacked him full force.
I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of many things.
However, as we sat there, I knew one thing.
We were gone.
We were together again.
And we were gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Gone
My eyes flickered open and I was literally gone—away from what I knew as my reality. Golden light danced in front of me.
A wave of light akin to the Aurora Borealis flashed across the horizon like an enormous ribbon in the wind. I stood on sparkling, clear rose water. A gentle wind swept through, pushing the scene of rose petals up my nostrils.
The pink water from below shined brightly, lighting up my surroundings against the dark sky. A massive body of pinkish-gold water culminated in a waterfall on the side opposite of the golden light in the sky.
The sky set into a deep shade of blue.
I stepped forward. With each movement, a neon glow formed around my foot in the exact spot where it landed. The glow faded away within a few seconds, resolving back into the clear pink. I’d never seen water like this.
