Floating Hearts

I could never prevent Kayden from believing in the most obtuse ideas, nor could he ever convince me to believe in the impossible.

Kayden and I were both much too obstinate for our own good. Our stubbornness often prevented our arguments from ending rather quickly because we could never agree on anything. If he wanted to watch the latest indie movie playing at a film festival, then I wanted to watch a horror movie playing at our local movie theater. If he wanted to listen to an obscure band playing on his music player, then I wanted to listen to a song on the radio. If he wanted to go to a coffee shop, then I wanted to go to the ice cream parlor. We were always arguing about the most trivial things, but we never cared if it took us an hour to come to a resolution for our arguments. After all, we were childhood best friends who were fine with the way things were, as long as we had each other.

Ever since Kayden was twelve years old, he believed that ghosts were real and roamed freely around the atmosphere without our notice. He never had any proof that they weren’t only fictitious characters created by storytellers to frighten little kids, but his tenacious persona prevented him from believing that they didn’t exist in real life. Despite popular belief, he thought that the entire human population misunderstood them and never considered if ghosts weren’t only roaming around the earth to haunt the people who caused them grief and agony before their tragic death. He wasted his sympathy for mythical creatures and didn’t care what others thought of his beliefs. The cliché stereotype of ghosts being evil spirits, who lurked the earth to get their revenge, was unnerving to him.

“Humans need to stop discriminating ghosts,” he had once informed me as we had lain down next to each other on the slightly damp grass of our meadow. “Humans aren’t much different from ghosts as they believe they truly are. After all, we all go through the difficult stage of finding our identity and enrolling on a perilous journey to escape the identity crisis we all suffer from.”

He thought that ghosts were misguided creatures who had no sense of direction to find the path that led them to their new identity. They were naïve spirits who suffered from identity crisis all over again because they had died and lost any memory of who they were before their death.

I had scoffed at his idea, which was absolutely the most ridiculous thought that he had came up with thus far. “I highly doubt that they will ever exist, Kayden.”

“One day, Charlotte, you’ll see that I’m right because I’ll prove it to you that they truly do exist,” he had promised as he had turned his gaze onto me, while I had continued to stare aimlessly at the clear, blue sky that had held no visible traces of a cloud.

I didn’t believe he would ever prove it to me, nor did I think he would ever remember his promise, for we were both fourteen years old when he had made me that promise in the fields. I recalled thinking that his imagination had taken over his mind again, and he needed to shift his ideas towards a blank paint canvas—Kayden was an artist who had a passion for painting surrealism in his artwork. I remembered that I decided to disregard his promise because I knew that he would eventually forget ever making it as the years passed by or give up trying to prove that ghosts existed when they clearly didn’t.

Six years elapsed since the day he told me of his philosophy as our-twelve-year-old-selves lied in our sacred fields. I graduated from high school and was ready to take a year off school to travel the world, but Kayden wouldn’t join me on my expedition for he was no longer here. Perhaps others would say that he moved to another place, but I knew the truth that they all wanted to deny. He had committed suicide during our last year of high school for unknown reasons, and his departure had left me mentally unstable for the rest of the year.

There were so many more arguments we needed to fight in and apologizes we had to say. I never had a chance to tell him what I really thought of him. I never told him how much of an idiot I thought he truly was or how brilliant he was when it came to his art. I never told him how his thoughts had sometimes shattered my stubborn exterior and secretly made me agree with some of his inane ideas. More important, I never told him that I was in love with him since we were twelve.

If there were another flaw I had to acknowledge about me, then it would be my foolishness. I was foolish for never building up the courage to admit to him that I loved him as more than a friend who would playfully argue with me. I regretted never telling him my infatuation with him over the years because I couldn’t regret declaring the love that was unrequited on his part. If I had told him the truth, then I wouldn’t have to continue with my life with a regret that I could never abandon, while Kayden was no longer here beside me to reject me and pretend that everything was back to normal.

I made myself a promise to visit our meadow before I left this town to travel the world and find my identity. I was leaving for London, which was my first destination on my getaway plan, the next day, and I had no choice but to stand in the fields on a Monday morning. I gazed aimlessly at the sky that held the dusty clouds of my splattered dreams. I felt empty standing here alone without the man who had showed me our sacred place, which he had accidentally stumbled upon when we were twelve years old. Even the fallen leaves were dying, and the wildflowers were wilting. Birds were no longer chirping its peaceful melody and gently shattering the silence without disrupting the serenity in the air, for they flocked to another meadow where the sunlight would radiate the atmosphere. The fairy ring was still present in the fields, but I knew that its magic had faded over time for Kayden was no longer here.

I breathed in the gentle air and sighed softly. I was going to miss our safe haven because I knew that I could never come back here again after I leave this town—I couldn’t bear to stand here now, and I didn’t know if my mind would be stable enough to not break down here or if my heart wouldn’t shatter when I thought of him again. Time could slowly heal the wounds of the past, but it could never obliterate any traces of what caused it. I could never forget Kayden or the memories I formed with him, for I could never erase the ink we had used to write our storybook.

I heard a sudden movement wake me from my reverie and disrupt the silence in the atmosphere. The noise it made automatically captured my attention and compelled me to wonder what had caused the swift sound. I looked to my left to gaze at the source of the sound, but I didn’t see anything except for the fallen leaves that encircled me. I decided to overlook the noise, but another movement shattered the tranquility in the air and came from the opposite direction.

I instantly became alert and wary of the peculiar situation, but it didn’t frighten me, for I still felt oddly at peace. I almost sensed another presence lurking among the fields, but I knew that I was going mad. The side effects of a lack of sleep were finally beginning to take effect and causing me to think of the most outrageous things. There couldn’t have been another person here because no one else knew of the secret meadow except for Kayden and me. I was clearly the only person standing in the meadow with the wilting flowers and dehydrated leaves.

Suddenly, more movements began to shoot past the sky, and the summer breeze was guilty in providing the gentle melodies of the wind. I still thought that something eerie was going on that I didn’t know of, but I watched in awe, as I couldn’t believe what I saw.

A work of art painted itself in the atmosphere as the leaves danced through the invisible zephyr. Each dehydrated leaf resurrected from the dead and formed with another to create a semi-perfect heart in the air.

I blinked rapidly a few times and tried to determine if this was all a dream—I even pinched myself to see if this was another reverie, but I was wide-awake, and this was all real. How could this even be remotely possible? Leaves couldn’t float in the air and form a heart with one another!

“Do you believe me?” the wind seemed to whisper gently into my ear.

I knew then that I officially lost my mind because winds couldn’t whisper into people’s ears! It wasn’t logically possible for leaves to float in the atmosphere or winds to whisper into a person’s ears, but I knew one person who would gladly disagree with me.

I started to wonder if the wind wasn’t the one who asked me the question, but if it was Kayden instead. I knew I sounded insane as I considered the possibility of it, but what if this was his strange way of proving a point to me—except I wasn’t sure of what he was trying to prove. I highly doubted that he became a ghost who remembered the promise he had made when we were younger, but what if he did recall the day in the meadow, and he was the cause of the bizarre floating heart in front of me. Could he also have spoken the words that I had mistakenly thought the wind had whispered?

I hesitantly reached towards one of the floating leaves, and it surprisingly didn’t flinch at my touch or fall gracefully to the ground. The heart was still intact and continued to hover. I knew then that he was standing beside me in our haven, but I couldn’t see him physically for he was now a ghost who remembered his promise and fulfilled it. Was it possible that he had swallowed the suicide pill so he could prove to me that ghosts truly existed? If that was the reason he committed suicide, then he was a bigger idiot than I originally thought he was, but he was a man of his words and always had fulfilled his promises. I still couldn’t believe that he would kill himself to prove a point to me that I didn’t even want him to verify!

I refused to cry in our meadow because if Kayden was truly here, then he shouldn’t have to see me weeping when I should be rejoicing in our impromptu reunion. Instead of allowing my tears to escape, I would let him feel jubilance in knowing that I agreed with him.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the truth that only he knew I couldn’t deny.

“I believe you, Kayden.”