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Help!I open my mouth, but I am not sure if the words come out or not.
“There’s no one around to help, Noah. But it’s gonna be okay!” She cups my cheek with her palm. “See you in another life.”
My eyes keep closing, and I can’t keep fighting sleep anymore. I need to surrender. Is this what dying feels like?
My head lulls on the floor as Christine walks away from me. The last thing I see is her vile smile before she closes the door and leaves me to die.
I try to swallow once, but the drool just trickles down the side of my mouth. Every inch of my skin turns slimy as a sea of cold sweat covers it. I try to move my limp limbs, but I fail.
Please, I don’t want to die like this. Please…
My brain floods me with memories of copper hair, a pair of pale hands holding my own and the sweetness of wild cherries. I see her in my mind. She is here with me.
And then everything turns black.
36
Die For You - Joji
Ronan
My dad’s home is beautiful, it’s warm and cozy, full of family photos, memories and bumps in the walls from the girls playing ball in the house. Full of everything I have never known next to my mother. I don’t know why, but I was so surprised by how accepted I was by everyone since the moment I stepped out of the plane. Their welcoming and kind demeanor punched another hole in my heart.
Oh, how I miss him.
The girls ran into my arms before dad and his wife, Lora, got the chance to hold them back. Life flies by in a blur, everything besides me lives and I just watch from the sidelines. I’ve been here for almost five days and they are still fighting over who’s my favorite, even though I tried my best to show them that I careequallydeeply about them. There’s not much difference between the girls, except that Rebeca, the older twin, hates chocolate with all she has, and Rosemary would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I try my best to seem gleeful, but I know that dad sees through me. He always has, even when I was a kid. Although I came here to try and relax, some would even say to try and forget, there is this weird knot in my tummy, not letting me. I can’t move on from this dead spot I stuck myself into. I haven’t stepped out of the house since I got here, and that’s completely fine, since that means more bonding time with my sisters, but I crave feeling better. I am drowning in my own sorrow, looking for a way out.
The kids and I talk cartoons and play Disney princesses, which makes me feel like a child for the first time in my life, at the ripe age of twenty-five. I show them my favorite music, which, to my surprise, Lora also listens to. I want to try and live like a not brokenhearted girl for at least a day, and somehow, despite all my efforts, it’s not happening for me. Every time my dad takes his wife into his arms, or kisses her forehead, I feel the hole inside me grow deeper and deeper.
I watch them over the coffee table, as Lora lifts her feet into his lap, and he gives her a foot-massage whilst the girls are cuddled up to me, watching a movie on their tablet. It’s the family I’ve always wanted, but something feels out of place.
Noah’s not here.
Dad smiles at her once she turns her face to him. My heart weeps in my chest for something as warm as this.
I miss him so bad, I feel like I might wither away or die. This type of hurt is not dull, on the contrary, it burns. It scorches everything it touches, and I know it all too well, since its claws are wrapped tightly all around me.
My dad lifts his eyes up to me and I show him my brightest smile. I find it so beautiful that I’m finally able to see what a loving, healthy relationship is, but at the same time, the moment is completely wrong. I feel like I wouldn’t have made the same mistakes, if I was surrounded by this type of love, but Christine is all I’ve known. And I am not trying to justify all the shit I’ve done, but there is a part of me that she broke, and that part is always prepared to lie and cheat, just to protect me.
Lora scoots back and hides her feet under her thighs, criss-crossing her legs. Peter lifts an arm, fitting it around her shoulders and she nuzzles into his side. Pressing his lips to her hair I hear him say ‘thank you for loving me’, and I feel another round of sobs rushing up to the surface.
“Excuse me,” I manage to mumble the words out, before they choke me up.
I almost topple the girls over as I run through the hallway and into the guest room, opening my hands and falling face first onto the fluffy ‘Winx club’blanket on the bed. Tears keep falling as hiccups make my stomach hurt. How does one survive this? Why do people willingly fall in love again, and again after heartbreaks, knowing there is a possibility of living through this yet another time. Shame for losing him skins my soul raw. There is nothing I would like more than to rewind the time, and take it all back.
A tiny knock on the door startles me. I lift my face covered in tear streaks from the pillow to see my dad walking in and closing the door behind him.
“Hey, baby girl. Are you okay?”
“No…” I whine, throwing myself into his arms. “I am far from okay, dad.”
“Does that have something to do with a certain someone with a head full of long black hair and a matching tattoo on his wrist?”
I nod once, before the cries and wailing continues. I am ruining his night with this kind of behavior, but I don’t know how to stop it.
“Did you talk to him?” he asks, pushing the hair out of my face.
