Tell Me, What's Real?

Swirls of grey enlightened the sky, sprinkles of glittering sunlight shining through, falling softly upon the grass. A deep, echoing silence seemed to inhabit the air, angst flowing with every ripple that the wind made through the trees. Leaves twirled and danced with the movement, birds tweeting and swooping through the cloud-rimmed sky. Small, pearly drops of cold water dropped from their wake, falling blissfully onto the bright green grass below, free from fear, hurt and anguish.

All around me, I could see life. I could see the birds, the leaves and the shining sunlight moving as if they had no care, as if there was nothing stopping them. They all embraced the life they had been given, the chance they had been gifted with.

But inside my heart; there was no life. There was deep, dark emptiness, as if the happiness and light had been ripped from my very core. Drops of salty water cascaded down my face, disguised in the never-ending flow of water that fell from the sparkling sky, leaving signs of my absolute misery unseen and unfelt by anyone but me.

The leaves continued to dance. The birds continued to swoop and dive, and the water continued to drizzle down onto the ground. My heart continued to break.

There is no feeling quite like being empty. There is nothing that can compare to the rippling numbness that clouds your body, the taste of salt water on your lips and the feel of your hurting heart pumping slowly within your chest. There is no feeling quite like having your thoughts stop; disappear, leaving nothing left but the sadness that swallows you.

There is nothing quite like feeling the pieces of yourself crack, feeling your soul being ripped away and your whole body becoming hollow, as if there was nothing left inside it.

Your heart pumps, but your body doesn’t feel the blood. Your body doesn’t register the breaths leaving your mouth, or even the tears streaming down your face. Your body no longer feels as though it’s alive, instead, almost as if you have left the plains of the earth itself.

Your feet feel heavy, as though at any moment the ground underneath your feet will crack and chip away, leaving you to be dragged under into the never-ending depths of the below.

And suddenly, the thought means nothing. Because you’re empty.

And through all of the emptiness, all of the pain, all I could picture was her face. The face that I was scared to forget. The face of the girl who’d promised to stay by my side for the rest of our long lives.

I’d learnt now that promises usually meant nothing.

“Izzy?”

My eyes snapped up, emotionless as they met his. I didn’t know whether it was the sorrow clouding my body, the look in my eyes or the tears falling down my face, but somehow, he knew. He knew what had happened. He knew that she was gone.

And just like that, he was by my side. His arms were wrapped around me, stopping the ground from swallowing me, stopping the earth from pulling me under. I could feel the warmth swarming through my body, bringing with it the antidote that seemed to break through my heart.

The emptiness left, and with it came the pain. The anguish. The feel of my fragile heart ripping in two.

And somehow, his arms didn’t seem to be enough. His soft lips pressed against the top of my head didn’t stop the ache, and his gentle words of comfort didn’t quench the loneliness.

Suddenly, I broke. I wrapped my arms around his waist, pulling him into me, needing the coldness and the loneliness to disappear. My hands clenched in fists at the back of his shirt, pulling on it with my fingers, letting out angry sobs of frustration.

He placed his head in the crook of my neck, his arms shielding me from the perfectness that the world around me seemed to radiate. For once, I wanted something just as broken as me.

“Shh, Izzy, it’s going to be okay,” he whispered, his voice coming out as a croak.

I wanted to tell him that it wouldn’t be okay. That it would never be okay. I wanted him to hold me so tight that I would never feel cold again, that I would never feel the pain of being so horrifically empty.

But I couldn’t open my mouth.

“It was time for her to let go, Izzy,” he told me softly, his husky voice making my dead heart flutter slightly.

And all I could think was that for once, I felt as though someone could feel my pain. I could feel it in the wet drops that fell onto my head, and the sadness that clouded his blue eyes. He didn’t know the exact pain I felt, but I could see it in his eyes that he could feel it with me.

So I allowed myself to break down. I allowed the remaining pieces of my being to break, and I left him there, trusting him to pick up the pieces. Trusting him to make me whole again.

But even he couldn’t.

~~~~~

Eventually, the crying stopped. Denial set in.

I wouldn’t believe that she was gone for good. Somehow, the second time wasn’t the same as the first time.

Because the second time, I could blame myself. And that just made everything a whole lot worse.

Jimmy never left. He sat out with me through the pouring rain, through every sob, every cry, every hit, scream, tear and break.

But I couldn’t help myself. I was scared that he would leave too, that eventually, I would be alone. I didn’t want to trust him, I didn’t want to place my heart in his hands, but somehow, I couldn’t stop myself from clinging onto him with everything that was left of me.

“The pain will go away, Izzy,” he whispered, stroking my wet hair with his long fingers. “Eventually it will disappear.”

I glanced up at him, sniffling slightly as tears continued to roll down my pale cheeks. “How do you know?” I asked quietly, my eyes narrowed as I asked him.

Jimmy looked away from me, looking up towards the sky, his arms never pulling away from our embrace. “Two years ago, I lost my baby sister,” he murmured, and I felt my heart pang.

“Jimm-“

“At first I thought that I couldn’t go on. I thought that my world was going to fall apart, that life as I knew it would be shattered. I’d never cried as much as I did that day, hell, for the next few months.’ He stopped to glance at me, shaking his head slightly before he turned away.

“Each day I would walk into her room and sit on her bed. I can still remember it; it was pink with tiny golden butterflies on the end. And I remember praying to God that she’d appear, that I’d close my eyes, and when I opened them she’d be next to me, grinning, her two front teeth missing and her chocolate hair still in waves down her back. I’d never really believed in God, but somehow, I needed something. I was desperate, I needed anything to bring her back.”

He looked at me, and just like he could feel mine, I could sense his pain. He looked like he wanted to cry, like he wanted to let his pain consume him, but he didn’t. He was stronger than me.

“I guess he finally listened to me, or luck was on my side, because she came back. It was three days later, and I was sitting in her room, reading one of the books I used to read her before bed, just saying it out loud to the emptiness. And then suddenly, I heard her reply.” His voice was becoming quiet, almost like a croak, his face paling slightly as he stared at the ground.

“I wasn’t like you. I didn’t think I was crazy, or that I was seeing things. I thought I was lucky. I thought that someone had finally decided to give me a break.”

“During the next four weeks, I pushed everyone away from me, only focusing on her. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose her again, that I took advantage of my time with her. At the time, I didn’t know of the exceptions. I thought she was going to be with me forever,” he said, whispering the last part wistfully.

“But she wasn’t. One day she disappeared, and I was left with nothing. Every part of me broke; I tried praying, I tried begging, I tried anything. I went to her room everyday and sat by her bed, just waiting for her to come back. But she didn’t. She was gone for good, and everything in me, everything I had built up, broke.”

My heart felt like it was burning as I listened to him. My tears were falling faster, holding not only my own pain but also his. Because it was in that second that I understood that he knew. He knew what it was like. And all those things I’d held against him, everything that I thought he could never understand disappeared. He was broken, just like me.

“When she left, I was out of my mind. I felt as though no one could ever understand my pain, that no one could ever know quite what I was going through. And then I-“ he stopped, shaking his head softly.

His heart was breaking again. I could feel it. So I did the only thing I knew how to do, in a desperate attempt to heal us both. I cupped his cheeks with my hands, and shakily brought his lips to mine.

The kiss was longer than the other, and much sweeter, his warmth lighting me up until I finally felt alive. Through each other’s lips we were sending our pain, mixing them together so that we could attempt to deal with them. We were sharing our pain, our past, our anguish. We were desperately trying to fight them together.

I pulled away, my lips just inches away from his as my blue eyes searched through his own. His breath was warm against my face, his usually guarded eyes now swirling with emotions. But I had to know.

“Promise me you’ll never leave me,” I breathed, a small tear trailing down my cheek.

His eyes flashed with pain and he attempted to pull away, but I held him there. “Izzy, I-“

“Promise me,” I demanded, my voice coming out as a sob. I needed him to answer. I needed him to say the word that would help heal my broken heart.

His eyes were burning with pain as they looked at me, as if they were drinking in the anguish I felt. “I promise,” he whispered.