Stranded Memories

There was a shift that occured between night and day, a change much subtler than sun replacing moon. Violet waited for it every evening through the open window next to her bed. In her constantly moving life it was something she'd never noticed or had the time to stop for. Not until William became a constant fixture did she begin to really see the world around her. Cool night air crept back tenatively, winning the battle over the blazing sun, the nipping breeze lingering like vapor against the humid warmth but steadily taking over in a transition of temperature.

Two days had passed with Violet conscious for every minute of it. There was a fear in her to close her eyes, to see his face once more. Yet the intoxicating fingers of sleep were something she couldn't hold against, the cool air a likeness to her drift into dreams. Another lick of scintillant cool fell against her cheek like a kiss of sleep, the twinkling of distant fireflies and stars blurring to one as consciousness gave away to something more.

"Violet..."

For a moment she was transported back in time, expecting to turn her head and see William lying next to her. It was almost a mirror image of the memory, William with his head propped up in his palm, staring lovingly down at her as a finger ghosted without feeling across her skin. Violet had resisted against every urge to close her eyes, but looking up in the too perfectly preserved brown orbs she couldn't remember the fuel feeding her fight.

"I haven't seen you in a while." He said softly.

Here Violet had given in, too weak to fight off her undeniable love for William as it held the majority over her a likeness to cancer. She leaned back into what should've been a warm embrace but felt detached, like a piece of food without taste. It looked the same, light and color falling so real upon it, but taste and smell could not be imitated. And yet Violet felt like the starving man, left with an unsatiable want she'd take any piece she got to fill. Seemingly in response to her unsaid feelings, William wrapped his arms around her, yet it did not achieve the same effect it had when he was alive.

"Why did you have to die?"

William sighed, running his fingers through her hair though she did not truly feel it. "If I had anything to give I'd give it all to change that."

In this dream, for she knew it was such, the first real thing she felt was the prickling at her eyes, painful but nothing if amounted in the grand scheme of things. It was a feeling she knew too well, repressing it countless times a day. Never consciously did she cry, though nights laced with terrors usually left her to wake with red eyes and a damp pillow. Sleep became her moment of weakness where she put down everything and faced trauma head on like a merciless wind tugging on her exposed self, leaving only an ache in the consciousness of day.

William stared deeply into her eyes, searching and seeing, his brow furrowing in found pain. Everything she suffered in silence was laid out in the open for him, William the only one understanding this loss and smothering affliction. "Talk."

Ignoring the still unacknowledged sting in her eyes, Violet spoke to the only person that truly listened. She explained more with emotion than actual words, communicating her feeling of aloneness with silent outcry. The frustration that came with other people and death, their foolish fumbling in the darkness of loss.

"They treat me like a child.... as if I don't understand the words their saying. It's all broken down sentences, broken down expressions... broken down food... I lost you, not the last ten years of development." Violet spat bitterly, thinking of her mother as just one of the poster children of this behavior.

"Then there are the people who don't know what to say, so they fumble over words like 'I'm sorry' and 'it'll be okay', like they broke a plate. And even then there are lengthy silences in between the phrases they repeat so often, like they're trying to think of something more original, not that they ever do."

An embittered Violet was surprised to hear William chuckle while she herself seethed with finally released resentment.

"What? Why are you laughing?"

He looked her in the eyes with the same warmth in his expression she imagined with every thought.

"People don't know how to deal with death. There's no social standard that's actually effective for how to act with someone who just experienced it." William replied calmly, a reflection of his and Violet's relationship as the calm among Violet's storm.

William was right of course, as the all knowing spirit he had become, this errant thought earning her a confirmation with his laugh in reaction to her thought. She knew but could not feel that William was running his fingers through her hair. This same feeling let her know he was staring down at her, though as she looked up the meaning behind this look became clear.

"None of those are the reason you're reacting this way, is it?"

That painful twinge at the corner of her eyes, the premature signature of tears, came back in stronger force than before.

Violet sighed, a small breath that spoke volumes.

"They don't understand." She explained in a whisper. "The sorry's... the sympathy... it's not right. They hardly know you... All those people that put flowers at the site, the ones going to provided grief counselors... they never knew you when you were here. It's like they're crying because they're supposed to."

Almost mirroring her words, Violet knew now that she was crying, could feel the wet streams on her cheeks though they seemed unable to exist in the same plane as William. None of what she said though was a lie, each memory replayed in her mind, of all the weeping students gathered on the sidewalks, the volunteers passing out pamphelets for anyone who needed to talk... even under the layers of numb she'd been disgusted.

"And my mom... she just thinks this was puppy love, or a high school crush. She refuses to understand why I can't move on. I can't leave for some fancy university and pretend you never happened. I lost half of me that night... when I lost you."

William sighed, shaking his head. "This isn't right. I can't keep holding you back like this."

"What are you saying?" She asked, the tone of his voice affecting her more than the words themself.

"Violet, I'm dead," He murmured softly, but with a serious undercurrent. "I'm never coming back, and me being here is not helping you get over me. You have to move on with your life. You have to move on without me."

Every word William spoke hurt, but the last sentence was the reality she kept in the back of her mind daily. It had been easier to ignore knowing that she could give in any moment and escape to William in her dreams. But she could only lie to herself for so long that the real world didn't have a back route like her mind, that nowhere in it did William exist, save perhaps six feet under.

"I don't want to do anything without you William. I can't." Violet murmured, her words fractured and broken.

William sighed once more, pinching his brow, pained even in her dreams. "Violet... you told me when we met you wanted to do something worthwhile with your life. But what your doing now is wasting it."

Violet looked up sharply into the depth of his eyes, finding the words that seemed to explain herself. "What if we'd switched places, and I died?"

He looked away, down at Violet's hands with a clear yearning to hold them. "What if's don't change what happened Vi. You didn't die, and you're not going to for a long time. Which is why you need to stop this nonsense and live."

"William," She whispered, drawing his gaze once more. "The only reason I'm here is because of you. And I'm still here now because I know I have this, right here."

"This can't keep happening Violet." He stated firmly. "Me being here isn't helping you move on."

Violet couldn't help but see both desires conflicting, the two of them impossible to exist simultaneously.

"Make up your mind William. Do you want me to move on, or do you want me to live? You can't have both."

Time in dreams is irrelevant, speeding by in one aspect as it inched by in another. Despite straddling both streams, Violet knew time crawled by in both as William weighed her words in silence. If she couldn't still stare up at her loves face, perfectly perserved in her memory, Violet wouldn't be able to take the still that had engulfed their precious time together in this limbo.

"If I stay, Violet, you have to promise me you'll live. And I mean really living, not going to my grave everyday. You have to stop ignoring the world."

This new turn on the conversation left Violet in the role of thinker, the keeper of silence. She looked over William with an appraising gaze. When she finally spoke, her voice hardly erased the quiet.

"You're not just my imagination are you?" She asked, a desperate attempt at hiding the first real hint of life in her voice going on internally.

William didn't answer, but his eyes downcast once more at her fingers, of which he had tried interlacing, gave him away. This sign gave her a fluttery feeling in her chest she'd missed for so long, the hint of opportunity she gladly grasped.

"I promise."