You Fill My Sails With Your Wasted Breath

I stood in my kitchen, fixing Joshua's tie. He wore a nice dark blue dress shirt, black pants and dress shoes. He was having trouble figuring out how his tie worked though. For a boy who was perfect, he didn’t know how to work a simple tie.

"I don’t want to go," he mumbled, his head on my shoulder.

"Look, I get that you're tired but you need to wake up. Church is church." He sighed and looked at me. His blue-green eyes were beautiful as they danced across my face.

"You look beautiful," he said smiling. I rolled my eyes while my cheeks turned pink.

"You are such a ham," I muttered as I straightened him up. He pulled my hands away from the silk tie and kissed them gently.

"I don’t think you understand how much you mean to me." I rolled my eyes.

"It's just another mass." I said as I brushed his brown hair out of his face. I ran my hand over his cheeks and smiled. "Just relax and say what I wrote."

"No one is going to believe I wrote it."

"I know, which is why I wrote my name after it all." He smiled and kissed my lips gently.

"No one is going to miss you more than me." I bit my lip and nodded.

"I know that," I said softly. "And I know….I know that I'll miss you a lot too." He looked down at my hands and closed his eyes.

"Make sure that dumb angel guy doesn’t get his hands on you okay? Either of them. I don’t like the way the two of them look at you." I laughed again and kissed his lips. "I cannot get over the taste of you," he said smiling. "Too bad you didn’t sleep with me." I rolled my eyes.

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Nope, just a joke." He said smiling that cute smile of his. I laughed and shook my head.

"Come on," I said as I walked with him out into the living room. There stood Katie, my parents, Adella, Maggie, Zach and Margaret Stowe. They looked at me and at Joshua and I shook my head. "You guys are going to cry, huh?" They all looked away, excluding Maggie, and wiped their eyes. I sighed and walked over to them to hug them tight.

"My baby girl," my mother said into my shoulder as I squeezed her tight.

"Mamma," I whispered, the tears rising in my eyes. "Mamma don’t cry okay? I'm going to start crying and it'll be awful." She laughed a little, the tears in her eyes streaming down the sides of her cheeks. I could feel the warm tears fall on my neck and shoulder. I brushed her hair a little and hugged her tight. "You always told me to be strong, so do me a favor and be strong for me now?"

"You sound like me," my mother said as she brushed a tear from my eye. She hugged me again and shook her head. I looked at my dad and grinned.

"Who's the big A, dad?" I asked as I hugged him tight.

"You are, Baby A." I smiled and nodded.

"That's right. And make sure you remember that. I'm better than Adella right?" He laughed and hugged me and my sister.

"There's no one better than the two of you." Adella pulled away from my dad and hugged me tight.

"I love you, Pebbles."

"Love you too, Bam Bam." I said smiling. I looked at Mrs. Stowe and hugged her tight. "You got in way over your head, huh?" She laughed and kissed my forehead.

"You will be greatly missed, Ariella."

"As will you," I said smiling. I looked at Maggie and Zach before I shook my head.

"Do I even need to say anything to you?"

"You and I will be spending a lot of time together after this." I nodded and looked around.

"Well, we're going to be late!" I said as I pushed them all for the door. "You know how I hate to be late." They all walked out of the door, Zach and Maggie and myself pulling the rear. I closed the door to my house and stared up at it with a soft sigh. "I'm going to miss this house…" I muttered as I looked up at it's pale walls.

"Ariella," said Zach as he held out his hand to me once more. I stared at him and then at his hand and took it before walking with him to the car. I helped Joshua and Katie into the back and Maggie, Zach and I watched as my father started the car.

"I'll see you guys at the church." I said with a smile. My parents nodded and pulled out of my driveway, along with Mrs. Stowe, and waved bye. I waved back and looked at Zach and Maggie. "Are we going to fly or are we going to poof or…Jet Blue?" They smiled a little and Maggie touched our shoulders. We poofed. It was cool. The church was crowded and everyone seemed to be shrouded in this depressing gloom. I stood in the back of the church, listening to the people talking. Everyone seemed to have something to say about me. A lot of it was nice. I liked to hear what people thought of me. Everyone had different memories that made me laugh and giggle. Zach and Maggie stared at me and the people talking. I watched as Adella stood up and talked about when we were young, all of my family laughing as well. I watched as Katie stood up and talked, making the people laugh and I watched as Joshua stood up and read aloud what I had written.

"Ariella told me to read this to you all so, here it goes. 'You are all too good for words. I really don’t know what I can say that will reach all of you at the same time. I know that you are all special and you are all important to me. You are all unique and so are the memories we share. It's not fair that I have to leave so soon and it's not fair that we will never get the chance to build more memories but for my sake, keep the memories I've built with you for as long as you can. I know I will. I don’t know where I will go, who I will meet, but I know that I will never forget where I came from. I love everyone here, at this gathering, and I want you all to know that you definitely make my novel. I know it was one I enjoyed living, hopefully, you'll enjoy reading it.' I don’t know what you all shared with Ariella but I know that she will always be a part of me and a part of my future. Never forget someone whose sole purpose was to remember every one of you." The crowd was crying, their tears making me feel like I had done something wrong but I know it wasn’t that. It was that they knew those words were from me, those words were true and were sincere.

Joshua left the podium and sat with my family. I let out a sigh and stared at the ground.

"It's tough," Maggie said softly.

"Yeah," I concurred. "I uh…I didn’t see this coming."

"No one ever does." She replied.

"It's cool," I said as I looked at her. "I didn't know there were reapers in these parts."

"We're everywhere," she said.

"How will I have died?" I asked.

"Saving a dog from being crushed by a car. Your body was reported by a truck driver who was making a midnight delivery to the town next door. You ran out Friday night and they found your body Saturday morning. No one wasted time on finding your body." I smiled a little.

"Good to know someone loves me."

"Everyone does," Zach said as he fixed his tie. I glanced at him, staring at his fancy suit and tie and shook my head.

"I only hope that they'll love me up there too."

"They'll love you no matter where you go," Zach said. "Maggie, I think it's time to go."

"Right, Boss man. Ariella? Are you ready?" I stared at the people in that church and I called out to Joshua. He looked back at me, as did my family and I waved to them.

"I'll miss you guys." I said softly. They all began to cry and I couldn’t help but start up too. They turned away and I turned around, all of us ready to move on.

I guess this is where my novel ends. The final chapter wrapping everything up. I died, everyone cried, Zach and his brothers went onto the next town and the next soul to capture. Well, sort of. As I opened the door to the church, I looked around once more and when I looked at my family, someone caught my eye; Sebastian.

"Why isn't he leaving?" I asked Zach.

"He's….he's got his own thing to deal with."

"Someone else in the game?" I asked.

"I cant answer that question. He and I have to follow the rules."

"Rules? You cant tell each other who your target is?"

"We cant tell a mortal who our target is." I looked at Sebastian and as he spoke to Joshua, a chill ripped at my spine. Hopefully, the boy of my dreams wouldn’t be joining me any time soon. "Let's just hope whatever mission Joshua is looking to go on is one that doesn’t involve him being brave." I looked at Maggie, who was staring at me.

"Time to go," she said as she held out her hand.

"Is there any way for me to check on them?"

"I'll have to tell you on the way," Zach said. "It's a long ride up." I glanced at him and swallowed.

"Alright let's go." I said as I glared at Zach. "You are going to be explaining a lot to me and that boy better not be hurting my Joshua." He shook his head.

"You are so weird." He said, making me laugh. And with that, my novel ended. The short 16 years of my life were summed up in these odd number of pages. Well not really. Only the important parts. My childhood and my preteen life is locked away with the one I love most. Maybe if you read their novel, you can find a little bit of me too. But hey, you'll have to wait for the sequel.