I walk around outside, stretching my legs by walking in circles. The whole time, Dylan just stands there, still looking at the sky. I look up again, thinking that I missed something, but it is nothing but white clouds and blue skies. “Wasn’t it supposed to storm today? Like, a big snow storm?” Dylan says, his eyes still looking towards the sky. I think for a second before I respond. “Yeah, I think we were. But you're saying that like it's a bad thing. Shouldn't we be happy that it's not snowing?” “Yeah, yeah, but it was a 90% chance.” He says, finally taking his eyes off the sky, and looking directly into mine. “I don’t remember the weatherman ever being that wrong. I don’t know, it might not mean anything, but it’s still really weird.” Great another thing to add to the extensive list of weird things that are happening. What I would give to go back to my boring, normal life. To have school everyday. To go to work everyday after school. To stay up till midnight doing my homework. Why am I spending what is probably my last day alive, fighting with the person I love. The person I want to spend the rest of my life with, however short that may be I think. I go over, and pull Dylan into a very aggressive hug, squeezing him, what I realized a few seconds later, may have been too hard. He doesn't hug back right away, looking down at me with a confused expression on his face, but after a second he hugs me back. He strokes my cheek with his hand and runs the other through my hair. He leans down and plants a kiss right on my lips. Time seems to slow down. I wish this would last forever. But it doesn’t. It just fades away as he removes his lips from mine and pulls away. He looks me straight in the eye and says “I love you. I will love you. I will never stop loving you. I would die for you, heck I would kill myself for you. I love you Ashley Harlow, with all my heart.” His words go straight to my heart, and plant themselves there, never to be removed. I can feel my eyes start watering. We have said I love you so many times before, but this time, I know it’s true, because I feel the same way. He completes me and makes me whole. He is my best friend, my soul mate, my anam cara. He is the yin to my yang. And I will love him forever, and ever, not even after death will I stop loving him. I love him so much that not even a poet could make up a word to describe it. I can feel the tears streaming down my face now. I don’t know how to respond, so I just look at him, still crying, and say the only words that will come out. “I love you too.” I turn my face away because I am ugly when I cry. My face gets all red and blotchy, and well…. you know if you’ve cried before. As I cry into my hands I feel him out an arm around me, gently place a finger under my chin, and tilt my face up till I can look him in the eyes. “Please don’t hide your face from me,” he says quietly “You know how much I like looking at beautiful things.” And then he starts coughing. Wet, crackly, body wrenching coughs. He quickly covers his mouth with his hand, but not quickly enough because I see what he’s hiding. On his hand is blood, splattered across his palm and onto his fingertips. He doesn’t stop coughing. Can he breathe? I think. “Oh my gosh, Dylan! Are you ok?!?!” I ask, starting to get scared. All Dylan does is nod his head and continue coughing. My heart is pounding now, as I watch Dylan drop to his hands and knees, still coughing. Red blood splatters onto the white snow. I drop to my knees beside him, unsure of what to do. I rub his back in a circular motion, like my mom did for me when I was sick. Eventually, the coughing stops, and Dylan flops down onto his side, weak and in pain. He sucks in breaths so greedily, it feels like a crime. And I just stay kneeling next to him, not sure of what to do or even say. So of course I say something stupid “Are you ok?” I almost laugh at how stupid it sounds, as soon as the words leave my mouth. Of course he’s not ok, he’s coughing up blood, he’s freezing cold, and he was chased by a demon. It’s like asking a person without legs “can you walk?” Yet again, all he does is nod his head. “Can you talk?” “Yes.” He says, his voice raspy and swollen like an ex-smokers. “Can you sit up?” “I think so…” he says, his voice trailing off as he tries to push himself up. His arms tremble and shake, clearly under a lot of strain. I wish to my lord and savior that I could help him. “So is this new? The coughing?” I ask “Kind of…I mean it started this morning.” He rasps “And you didn’t feel like you needed to tell that you were coughing up blood. Why…” I say, starting to raise my voice, but I immediately feel bad. I’m yelling at the only person in this frozen world who loves me and the person that would die for me. I am yelling at the only person in this frozen world who loves, who also happens to be coughing up blood, and might be dying. “I am so stupid.” I tell him. “How many people yell at their injured boyfriend when they're stuck in the wilderness together, and will probably die there.” “You are not stupid. But you do stupid things, but so do I. So does everybody. But honey, you are the smartest person I know. How many other people do you think could take all AP classes and not have a breakdown? How many people do you think could argue about anything and win? How many people do you know who would defend their faith in a public school against their most liberal teacher, and convince that teacher to let them pray in their class? I only know one. And that's you babe. Ashley, everybody does stupid things, but that doesn't make them stupid, it makes them human.” He tells me, and at this point I'm starting to sob. It’s been so long since I've heard that. Since my grandpa died, I've felt empty inside. Everything felt like I was just going through the motions. My Mom would say she loves me and I would say I loved her, but it was just the automatic response. Gosh how I wish I could tell her how much I love her. When my Dad would wake me up in the morning, before he would go to work and say goodbye to me, I would say goodbye and how I hoped he would have a good day, but it was just a prepackaged soundbite. What I would give now, to just be able to say goodbye to him. I never said goodbye to my Grandpa. When he was dying of cancer, and I was offered the chance to visit him, I blew it off and hung out with my friends instead, because I was scared. I didn’t know how to talk to him or even just sit there. How do you say goodbye to the person that was with you your whole life? And then he died, and I never said goodbye to him. Never told him how much I love him. And now the same thing is happening all over again. “Dylan I love you.” My voice trembling as warm tears continue to streak down my face. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He drags himself over to me and wraps me into a hug. I want to just fade away into his arms. I keep crying and whispering, "I love you. I love you. I love you.” and Dylan just keeps holding me and saying “I know. I know.” and “It’s ok. It’s ok” It’s been so long. So long since I have let someone see me cry. So long since I felt alive. So long since I've felt truly loved.
“Wasn’t it supposed to storm today? Like, a big snow storm?” Dylan says, his eyes still looking towards the sky. I think for a second before I respond.
“Yeah, I think we were. But you're saying that like it's a bad thing. Shouldn't we be happy that it's not snowing?”
“Yeah, yeah, but it was a 90% chance.” He says, finally taking his eyes off the sky, and looking directly into mine. “I don’t remember the weatherman ever being that wrong. I don’t know, it might not mean anything, but it’s still really weird.”
Great another thing to add to the extensive list of weird things that are happening. What I would give to go back to my boring, normal life. To have school everyday. To go to work everyday after school. To stay up till midnight doing my homework. Why am I spending what is probably my last day alive, fighting with the person I love. The person I want to spend the rest of my life with, however short that may be I think.
I go over, and pull Dylan into a very aggressive hug, squeezing him, what I realized a few seconds later, may have been too hard. He doesn't hug back right away, looking down at me with a confused expression on his face, but after a second he hugs me back. He strokes my cheek with his hand and runs the other through my hair. He leans down and plants a kiss right on my lips. Time seems to slow down. I wish this would last forever. But it doesn’t. It just fades away as he removes his lips from mine and pulls away. He looks me straight in the eye and says “I love you. I will love you. I will never stop loving you. I would die for you, heck I would kill myself for you. I love you Ashley Harlow, with all my heart.”
His words go straight to my heart, and plant themselves there, never to be removed. I can feel my eyes start watering. We have said I love you so many times before, but this time, I know it’s true, because I feel the same way. He completes me and makes me whole. He is my best friend, my soul mate, my anam cara. He is the yin to my yang. And I will love him forever, and ever, not even after death will I stop loving him. I love him so much that not even a poet could make up a word to describe it. I can feel the tears streaming down my face now. I don’t know how to respond, so I just look at him, still crying, and say the only words that will come out. “I love you too.”
I turn my face away because I am ugly when I cry. My face gets all red and blotchy, and well…. you know if you’ve cried before. As I cry into my hands I feel him out an arm around me, gently place a finger under my chin, and tilt my face up till I can look him in the eyes.
“Please don’t hide your face from me,” he says quietly “You know how much I like looking at beautiful things.”
And then he starts coughing. Wet, crackly, body wrenching coughs. He quickly covers his mouth with his hand, but not quickly enough because I see what he’s hiding. On his hand is blood, splattered across his palm and onto his fingertips. He doesn’t stop coughing. Can he breathe? I think.
“Oh my gosh, Dylan! Are you ok?!?!” I ask, starting to get scared. All Dylan does is nod his head and continue coughing. My heart is pounding now, as I watch Dylan drop to his hands and knees, still coughing. Red blood splatters onto the white snow. I drop to my knees beside him, unsure of what to do. I rub his back in a circular motion, like my mom did for me when I was sick. Eventually, the coughing stops, and Dylan flops down onto his side, weak and in pain. He sucks in breaths so greedily, it feels like a crime. And I just stay kneeling next to him, not sure of what to do or even say. So of course I say something stupid
“Are you ok?” I almost laugh at how stupid it sounds, as soon as the words leave my mouth. Of course he’s not ok, he’s coughing up blood, he’s freezing cold, and he was chased by a demon. It’s like asking a person without legs “can you walk?”
Yet again, all he does is nod his head.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes.” He says, his voice raspy and swollen like an ex-smokers.
“Can you sit up?”
“I think so…” he says, his voice trailing off as he tries to push himself up. His arms tremble and shake, clearly under a lot of strain. I wish to my lord and savior that I could help him.
“So is this new? The coughing?” I ask
“Kind of…I mean it started this morning.” He rasps
“And you didn’t feel like you needed to tell that you were coughing up blood. Why…” I say, starting to raise my voice, but I immediately feel bad. I’m yelling at the only person in this frozen world who loves me and the person that would die for me. I am yelling at the only person in this frozen world who loves, who also happens to be coughing up blood, and might be dying.
“I am so stupid.” I tell him. “How many people yell at their injured boyfriend when they're stuck in the wilderness together, and will probably die there.”
“You are not stupid. But you do stupid things, but so do I. So does everybody. But honey, you are the smartest person I know. How many other people do you think could take all AP classes and not have a breakdown? How many people do you think could argue about anything and win? How many people do you know who would defend their faith in a public school against their most liberal teacher, and convince that teacher to let them pray in their class? I only know one. And that's you babe. Ashley, everybody does stupid things, but that doesn't make them stupid, it makes them human.” He tells me, and at this point I'm starting to sob.
It’s been so long since I've heard that. Since my grandpa died, I've felt empty inside. Everything felt like I was just going through the motions. My Mom would say she loves me and I would say I loved her, but it was just the automatic response. Gosh how I wish I could tell her how much I love her. When my Dad would wake me up in the morning, before he would go to work and say goodbye to me, I would say goodbye and how I hoped he would have a good day, but it was just a prepackaged soundbite. What I would give now, to just be able to say goodbye to him.
I never said goodbye to my Grandpa. When he was dying of cancer, and I was offered the chance to visit him, I blew it off and hung out with my friends instead, because I was scared. I didn’t know how to talk to him or even just sit there. How do you say goodbye to the person that was with you your whole life? And then he died, and I never said goodbye to him. Never told him how much I love him. And now the same thing is happening all over again.
“Dylan I love you.” My voice trembling as warm tears continue to streak down my face. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He drags himself over to me and wraps me into a hug. I want to just fade away into his arms. I keep crying and whispering, "I love you. I love you. I love you.” and Dylan just keeps holding me and saying “I know. I know.” and “It’s ok. It’s ok”
It’s been so long. So long since I have let someone see me cry. So long since I felt alive. So long since I've felt truly loved.