One-Hundred Days

His heart broke on the cement, cracking and shattering into a million little pieces that fell between the cracks of eroding sidewalk. He stood there, absorbing the words she spat at his feet and the rain falling from the mourning sky. He was only a shadow falling into his own kind, broken apart and fleeing from the lightning that split open the sky. He held his empty bleeding hands out to the bleak sky above him, crying and screaming for it to fill the gaping hole inside of his chest.

I watched this from the shadows clinging to the brick walls surrounding him.

After that, he walked around at night with that empty space inside his ribcage. It rubbed against his lungs, scraping away the flesh and bone surrounding their insides until he couldn't breathe. He choked on empty air, clutching at an empty chest that only mocked him day and night. The rain seeped through the wound and left him weak and heavy, collapsing into the unforgiving concrete with heaving sobs echoing from his lips.

I watched him. I waited desperately for him to bring his hands beside his face and lift his bloodshot eyes from the ground and scream at the sky like he had done before. To hear him scream was to have my heart ripped from my veins, but to hear him scream was proof that he was still human and strong.
I waited until the sun started glowing on his broken and bruised body, illuminating all of the faults she had left him alone to deal with. I abandoned my shadows and took him in my arms, holding him as he slept against my chest while I walked along the lines of shadow and light.

My shadows walked behind us, lapping their tongues over his wounds and crying their charcoal tears at his battered frame. I could hear their laments echoing in my ears, their mourning wails over the beautiful being lying like a child in my frail arms.

I kept him with me, leaving my home with my shadows for a real one. I watched over him and stitched up his wounds while he slept. He was always silent, crying even in his sleep. I laid beside him and cried with him, our tears falling down our cheeks in perfect unison, a broken heart trying to fix another.

He stayed asleep for a month. Through the dusty light and stale air of the four walls surrounding us I watched him from a shadowed corner. He was with me, in my second home, but I still stayed stuck to the shadows that crept their way along every wall and corner. His eyes flickered beneath his blackened eyelids and I watched as he winced in pain whenever his hand brushed across the bandaged wound of his heart.

When he opened his eyes for the first time, I was sitting inside a shadow. I saw his eyes flicker open and glance around the unfamiliar room, until his eyes finally rested on me. I smiled and turned out of the shadow towards him, gesturing to his chest. His hands ran across the stitches in a perfect circle as his eyes stayed on mine.
He smiled once and nodded a slow thank you.

We talked forever once he woke up, about everything and about nothing. He asked about my shadows, my past loves and regrets. I told him nothing, only looked to the floor and said that they were my pets, my safe haven, the only ones that stayed with me through the cold nights when the storms ravaged this city. I asked him if her remembered her or what happened. He shook his head and asked me to tell him.
I told him I would let him remember at a different time.

We talked forever, through the days and the nights until the storm we had been waiting for dropped its starting bomb against the concrete. We heard its shattering blow and got to our feet, hands linked together as I helped him through the hallways and stairs to the outside.

He stood outside with his face against the downpour while I danced around him, screaming and shouting and smiling, feeling the burn of the sun that I hadn't felt in years of being hidden by shadows.
My shadows stayed hidden, stuck against the brick wall of the apartment building in the middle of the browning field. They watched as I let them fall away from me, smiling and laughing at my victory against my past. They let me go as I did them and crawled away to their own kind.

We danced together beneath the gray clouds, grabbing the lightning in our outstretched palms. I watched in the daylight his eyes grow bright and clear of tears. I watched the smile split his face in half and mimicked it in happiness. We were overwhelmed by the rain washing through our healed wounds and the lightning gracing our scarred skin.

I watched him smile and scream and shout, arms outstretched to the sky and face against the downpour. I remembered the last time his face felt a storm inside of the dark night. I was hidden in shadows as he collapsed into the concrete.
I felt the grass beneath my bare feet and the sun warm my skin made pale by shadows. I let my heart beat through its stitching as I watched him smile forever into the rain.

He was never as happy as he was that day we spent in the storm.