Don't Want to Die Alone Without You Here

His grave sits among hundreds of other identical headstones, arranged in straight rows. But I know which one is his. Seventh row from the front, fifth headstone from the left, and always surrounded by poppies. He hated flowers, but they remind me of him.

I sit down and trace the lines etched into the granite, trying to remember the smooth silkiness of his skin, and the feeling I got when it was pressed against my own.

James Owen Sullivan.

I knew him as Jimmy, his friends and family knew him as The Rev. But Jimmy had been my friend, too. In fact, he had been my entire life since the day I met him.

We were like peanut butter and jelly. You could never hear one name without hearing the other. Likewise, where one of us was, the other wasn’t far behind. We were one person in two bodies, we shared one mind and one heart. Jimmy had always been my friend, to the utmost degree. But somewhere along the way, he became something more. He became the man who put a sparkle in my eye and a spring in my step. I loved him truly, fully, and with my entire heart. We were inseparable and we thought nothing would ever tear us apart. However, we didn’t count on one thing.

Disease. The draining of a life, the division of a body and soul, watching my whole reason for existence fade away before my eyes.

Before the infection consumed our lives, Jimmy was a dynamic being. Energetic, zealous, and full of life. He could put a smile on anyone’s face with a single word or action. When he got sick, all of that changed. He was no longer the man I grew up with, antsy and bouncing off of the walls. Now he lay in bed all day, too weak to even lift his hand from his side.

I knew Jimmy was dying. We all did. It was still a blow when he passed away, an impact that ripped my soul to pieces. Shock prevented me from crying at first. But the Friday following Jimmy’s death, I pulled out the deck of cards we used to play poker, something we’d done as a tradition every Friday since we were kids.

Then I looked around and realized he wasn’t there, and abruptly it hit me. He wasn’t coming back. And so the tears began to fall, coming in heaving, racking sobs that left me with so little energy I couldn’t even raise my hand to wipe away the tears.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. When Jimmy died, a piece of me died along side him. He took a piece of my soul with him, and I’m never going to get it back. Sometimes it’s hard, and I cry. But other times, all I have to do is think about Jimmy, and then I convince myself that I can keep going.

*Flashback*

6 Years Old

I sat huddled in the corner, my back to the classroom, shaking with fear. Praying that today they wouldn’t find me, that today would be the day that I would be freed from this agony.

"Ha ha, you’re so lame."

The sentence instantly cracked my composure and I found myself crying. I realized that hiding in the corner hadn’t been the best course of action, because now that they had found me, I was trapped, a prisoner at their mercy.

"Why are you all by yourself? Don’t you have any friends?"

Why me? What had caused them to single me out for this torture? Here I was, all alone without a friend in the world, and they surrounded me like vultures, ready to pick at the tiniest flaw.

"You’re a loser. Why don’t you go home? Nobody wants you here."

"Leave her alone."

At the sound of the new voice, I turned and laid eyes on my hero.

Tall, even at six, with black hair and the deepest blue eyes I had ever seen. Just seeing his eyes made me feel safe around him.

"Leave her alone.", he said again. "Or I’ll tell the teacher."

Of course, to a kindergartener, that is the worst threat anyone could put over your head, so my tormentors fled, leaving me alone with this new person, who I was pretty sure was a friend, not foe.

"I’m Jimmy.", he said.

"Lyla." I introduced myself quietly, still shrinking into the corner. With my experiences, I was highly unwilling to trust someone new.

"You want to come play blocks with me?"

His question was quite surprising to hear. No one, not in my short six year life, had ever asked me to play with them. I eagerly sprang from my hiding place and followed him away to the play area, where we built a castle, and Jimmy let me be the princess.

Little did I know that day, but Jimmy Sullivan was to become my best friend, of the truest kind and truest form. And just like the day we met, he would always stick up for me. He would always be my hero.

13 Years Old

"So, Lyla, who are you going to the dance with?", Marley, head of the middle school cheer squad, asked.

It was the question that was flying around the middle school. And of course, its traveling companions were of course the rumors about who was going with whom. To some kids, the ones who were on what was called the ‘A-list’, the dance was a huge deal. But to my group, it wasn’t. In fact, I wasn’t sure if we were even going to go.

"No one.", I said.

"Oh really? I’d thought you’d go with Jimmy."

Go to the dance with Jimmy? Was everyone crazy? Jimmy was my best friend, not my boyfriend. I would never go to any dance with him.

"No, I’m not going with Jimmy.", I stated. "We’re just friends."

"Well, I heard Ashlee Frege was going to ask him."

That’s when I felt it. A small pain in my heart. Was I...jealous? Of Jimmy going to the dance with another girl? No, I couldn’t be. We’re just friends, remember? Or...are we?

Turns out Ashlee Frege did ask Jimmy to the dance, and he said yes. So while I sat to the side with Matt, Zacky, Brian, and Johnny, who had been duped into coming by Jimmy as well, Jimmy spent the entire night dancing with Ashlee, and completely ignoring me.

It hurt, leaving a hollow feeling in my heart. Jimmy had never done that before. I had always come first. But I guess some things have to change eventually.

17 Years Old

"Ah, Jimmy, you little fucker, you’d better run!"

Jimmy raced across the lawn with Matt at his heels, Matt soaked from head to foot by Jimmy’s sneaky water attack. Matt had been lounging next to the pool, and Jimmy had decided it would be funny to dump a bucket of ice cold water onto his head.

Jimmy rounded the corner of the pool, heading my way, but Matt wasn’t so lucky. He slipped on the wet tile and fell backwards into the pool, trying not to. I, of course, laughed my ass off.

"What are you laughing at?", Jimmy asked with a smirk. "You’re next."

"No, Jimmy! No!", I screamed at him playfully. I kicked and squirmed against his vice grip as he carried me to the pool. "Don’t you fucking dare throw me in that Goddamn pool!"

"Hey, that’s what pools are for."

"No, they’re not-" I felt myself flying from Jimmy’s arms before I could finish my protest, and I was instantly submerged in the cold water. But Jimmy hadn’t thrown me as far as he thought he could, and my head hit the rim of the pool with such force that it knocked me out cold.

"Lyla!"

I could hear Jimmy’s voice flowing through my ears, my pathway back to consciousness. When I reopened my eyes, Jimmy was hoisting my head above the water, his arms snaked tightly around my waist. Even semi-conscious, I could tell how much I liked this.

"Are you okay?"

"I’m fine.", I assured. "I just hit my head."

"Well, Goddamn, I thought I killed you."

The seriousness in Jimmy’s voice made me laugh. It would take a person like Jimmy to think that in knocking me unconscious, he had killed me. "No, Jimmy. I’m not dead. I’m perfectly fine. No thanks to you."

"No thanks to me? I’m the one who saved your ass from drowning."

Jimmy was dangerously close, our mouths only inches apart. What would it take for me to close that gap?

"I’m just glad you’re okay."

Without a second thought, I shifted in Jimmy’s arms and kissed him. I immediately pulled away, anticipating his reaction. He pulled me tighter against his body and kissed me again, and even through the water I could feel the heat between us.

"FINALLY!"

Matt’s cheerful yell broke through our haze, and we both twisted in the water to look at him strangely.

"What the hell are you on about, Sanders?"

"You kissed her!"

"Yes, I know.", Jimmy stated. "I was there."

"But...you kissed her! She kissed you! We’ve been waiting five years for this to happen, but if course you two had to be stubborn jackasses and not realize it until now."

"Realize what?"

Matt grinned widely. “That you two are meant for each other.”

19 Years Old

“Val!” My shriek echoed through the house. I pattered down the hall in my sock feet, wearing nothing but a shirt I had stolen from Jimmy and a pair of his boxers.

I found Val, Matt’s girlfriend of nearly a year, sitting in the living room, watching some mindless MTV bullshit. I catapulted over the back of the couch and landed beside her with a bounce.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“I’ve got something to tell you.”, I said excitedly.

Her eyes went to my face, reading my expressions, next scanning my outfit. When she raised her head again to meet my gaze, her eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Oh my God. You finally did it, didn’t you?”

I nodded enthusiastically, bobbing up and down on the couch. “Yea, I finally did it.”

“Wait, we are talking about the same thing, aren’t we?”, she asked. “We are talking about you fucking Jimmy?”

I quieted her with my hands. I carefully looked over both shoulders before leaning in to her and whispering in her ear, “Yes! I did! I slept with Jimmy! He took me into his room last night, and we...we did it.”

Val clapped animatedly. “God, FINALLY. It’s about time you two sealed the deal. Are you happy?”

“Thrilled.”

“Well, what was it like?”

I abruptly turned away, blushing like mad. I was okay with informing Val that I had slept with Jimmy. The details, however...I’d prefer to keep those to myself.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Lyla!” Jimmy’s voice suddenly sprang upon my ears, and I smiled to myself.

This did not escape Val’s attention. “Go.”, she said. “Go to your little lover boy.”

“Shut up.”, I said, bouncing down the hall to where Jimmy was waiting.

20 Years Old

“I can’t believe you guys are playing Warped Tour.”, I said in awe.

“Well, you better believe it, Lyla baby.”, Jimmy shouted, scooping me into his arms. “We’re Avenged Sevenfold and we are now officially fucking awesome!”

“And you get your own bus. Don’t forget that.”

“Yep!”, Jimmy agreed. He began spinning me around in circles, a very awkward version of a waltz. “We get our own bus, our own manager, and a spot on one of the backstages at Warped Tour!”

“So…since I’m coming with you guys…where am I gonna sleep?”, I asked.

Jimmy stopped spinning abruptly, causing me to nearly lose my balance. I grabbed onto his forearms to stop myself from falling and waited the few minutes while he obvious thought about the answer to my question. That was one of many things I loved about my Jimmy. No matter how simple a question was, he took forever to answer it.

“Well, there are only five bunks-one for each of us guys-so I guess you’ll sleep in my bunk with me!”

“Then let’s go get first dibs on our bunk!”, I yelled excitedly, pulling Jimmy onto the tour bus.

We quickly decided on a top bunk, because of course we were too good to sleep on the bottom! We also agreed that none of the other guys would be able to ‘use’ our bunk, because I was not sleeping in a bunk that one of them jizzed in. I hoisted myself up into the bunk and stuck my hand out, motioning for Jimmy to climb in after me. He instantly pulled me to his side, and I produced a camera in my left hand.

“What’s that for?”, Jimmy asked. My sweet, clueless boyfriend. It was a good thing he was cute.

“A picture, of course!”, I informed him loudly. “I want a picture of us in our new bunk, on your new tour bus.” I rested my head in the dip where Jimmy’s neck met his shoulder and told him to smile. As soon as I was sure the picture had been taken, I turned the camera around so that we could look at our picture. “Beautimous.”, I chirped.

“It’s got me in it, hun, of course it’s gonna be beautimous.”, Jimmy said, sounding slightly cocky.

“Oh yea, Jim, that’s it.” I snuggled closer to him, placing a lingering kiss on his collarbone. I felt a shiver run through his entire body. “So Jimmy…what do you say we break in our new bunk?”

Faster than I could blink, Jimmy had me on my back, his tall, lanky form hovering over me. “God, I thought you’d never ask.”

Days later, on our third anniversary, I walked onto the tour bus to find Jimmy sitting alone at the booth in the tiny kitchen, a vase full of roses sitting in front of him. When he laid eyes on me, a wide smile filled his entire face and he motioned for me to come sit across from him. I eagerly took the seat, and Jimmy removed the card from the bouquet of roses and handed it to me.

“Read it.”, he urged.

Lyla,

I really couldn’t think of a way to tell you how much I loved you, until I found this little quote thing. It’s kinda corny, but I think you’ll like it. Here are twelve roses for you. Eleven of them are real, and the twelfth one is fake. And Lyla, I will love you until the last rose dies.

Jimmy

It took me a few moments to gain enough composure to tell Jimmy I felt the exact same way about him. To this day, I still have that card and that rose, tucked away for a rainy day.

23 Years Old

“Lyla.” Jimmy’s soft whisper roused me from my somewhat peaceful sleep. “Lyla, wake up. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

“Seriously? Whatever it is, can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No. I need to talk you now.”

Groaning inwardly, I reluctantly rolled over to face Jimmy. The look on his face instantly told me he was nervous, and Jimmy was never nervous. What he needed to say must really be important.

“Lyla, we’ve been together for a long time and I know we’ve never got married, but Lyla, I wanna have kids.”

Well damn! That was…sudden. Jimmy had never talked about wanting to have kids before, so where was this coming from? And was it a viable possibility? After all, Jimmy and I had been together for six years, and thought we’d never gotten married-we felt we didn’t need a piece of paper to prove our love-I couldn’t deny I’d thought about having kids with Jimmy. I guess we never talked about it before because we felt we were ready. But now…Jimmy’s band was getting big-they were working on producing their third album, City of Evil-and we were old enough to be responsible for another human being.

Jimmy and I decided that we did want to have children, and of course Jimmy wanted to start trying right away. But it seemed no matter how many times we tried, the pregnancy test always had the same heartbreaking result. Negative. Why couldn’t we get pregnant? All we did was try, and I do mean all we did.

Finally, after months of trying and trying-and trying-I found out I was pregnant with Jimmy’s child. When I found out, Jimmy was in the studio finishing up his work on City of Evil. I sat down on the bathroom floor to wait for him, too excited to walk. When he finally got home, I called to him urgently and he raced to where I was in the bathroom. I showed him the positive pregnancy tests strewn across the counter and he pulled me up into his arms, jumping and shouting for joy. He instantly called his parents to tell them the good news, this would be their first grandchild.

For the next few weeks, Jimmy waited on me hand and foot. City of Evil was finished, so he now spent all of his time at home in our apartment, catering to my every whim. I tried to convince that I didn’t need this treatment, I wasn’t even showing yet, but he insisted. Jimmy was more excited about this baby than I was, and I certainly wasn’t going to do anything to rain on his parade.

One night, when I was roughly a month and a half along, I woke up in the middle of the night to excruciating pain. I didn’t know what it was. Even my morning sickness had been this painful. Panicking, I shook Jimmy awake and told him he had to take me to the hospital. Within fifteen minutes, we were sitting in an exam room in the ER, waiting for a doctor to come and tell us everything would be fine.

But everything was not fine. I’d suffered a miscarriage. Instantly our current hopes of becoming parents were crushed. How could this happen to us? All of our intentions were good. All we wanted was to bring a child into this world, and God had taken our first chance away from us. When we returned home, Jimmy phoned his parents to deliver the bad news, and sitting in the bedroom, I could hear every heartbroken word that left his mouth, and the tears began to fall. I felt empty inside. I felt like it was my fault our baby had died. Of course Jimmy didn’t feel that way, but I did. So I pulled Jimmy towards me, letting myself get lost in his body, trying to forget the fact that only hours earlier, the small life that we had created together had resided in my body. I did this over and over, until finally Jimmy ordered me to stop. He told me this wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t help me forget, it was only making it worse. So I resorted to crying myself to sleep in the dip of his shoulder.

Adding insult to injury, not three days later, Val announced that she and Matt were having a baby. Of course, they all knew that Jimmy and I had lost our baby, and we very upset over it, but that didn’t stop them from being excited over their own pregnancy. And then as if things couldn’t possibly get any worse, within three weeks time, Michelle, Gena, and Lacey also announced that they were pregnant. Now I was the only one not cradling a small life inside my body, and according to the doctors, I never would. The reason I’d lost the baby-and also the reason it’d taken Jimmy and I so long to get pregnant-was a medical condition. A medical condition that prevented me from ever having children.

Of course, not long after everyone’s good news, the guys were told they were going on tour to promote City of Evil. Matt, Brian, Zacky, and Johnny were very reluctant to leave their girls behind, being that they were pregnant and all, so they devised a plan. We all-which unfortunately included me-would move into Michelle and Brian’s house for the duration of the tour, so that we could be there to help each other out, although I wasn’t really sure what kind of help I would get from them.

Living with them was torture. Everyday I had to watch them carry their ever-expanding stomachs around, and listen to them decide on names, and all the baby shit that Jimmy and I should have already been doing. Most times when things got to be too much for me, I would turn to alcohol, a bad habit of mine. Val, Michelle, Gena, and Lacey did not approve of my behavior, but I’m thinking it was because they couldn’t drink. Unbeknownst to me, they ratted on me to the guys, who on their next visit-which Jimmy was conveniently absent from-told me I had to stop drinking. I yelled and screamed at them, telling them that I was wasn’t pregnant, I could drink however much I pleased. The next visit after our yelling match, Jimmy was there, too-thank God-and I cried into his shoulder, telling him I couldn’t live here anymore, I couldn’t take it.

Eventually I learned to get over the fact that Jimmy and I couldn’t have children. We briefly considered adoption, but quickly turned the idea down. We knew that the only reason we would want to bring children into this world was so that we could have a human being that carried a piece of each of us. Jimmy and I settled into our lives, deciding that as long as we had each other, we were okay.

25 Years Old

I struggled vainly to find a comfortable position on the hard hospital couch. The past few hours I’d spent here had been pure agony, laying here, not knowing whether Jimmy was okay.

Me and the guys had been doing our normal thing, which was to hit Johnny’s bar and drink until we couldn’t remember our own names. After we’d been there for several hours, Jimmy had stated that he needed to take a piss, but as soon as he stood up, he crumpled to the ground.

We all laughed, thinking he was just too drunk to stand on his own two feet. But when he hadn’t gotten up after more than a minute, my mind started to tell me something wasn’t right.

The doctors had said that Jimmy had stopped breathing, but they didn’t know what had caused it. They placed him on a ventilator and drew blood for lab tests. Now I sat in his room, at his bedside, awaiting his fate.

His disease had a name, one I can’t pronounce, nor can I remember its name. I think I did this on purpose, forgetting the enemy that vanquished my hero. Jimmy was given a year to live, a year that would be filled with pain and anguish. The doctor had said that there was the possibility of just ending it all now, but the answer I gave him was no. I knew Jimmy wouldn’t want to give up, just like that.

So I took him home, cared for him. I stayed at his side, always scared that if I left him, I’d never see him alive again. Watching Jimmy die was painful. Once the disease had progressed to a certain point, Jimmy was forced to give up drumming, and so Avenged Sevenfold was no more. But I’m certain that the guys would’ve given it up in a heartbeat if it meant they got to keep one for their best friends for just little bit longer.

So we all spent the next twelve months waiting for the day to come when it would be time to say goodbye to Jimmy forever, and I spent everyday praying it would never come. I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not yet.

One year later

“Lyla, it’s Brian...Jimmy’s in the hospital again.”

Brian’s call scared me, it always did. This had happened before. I would leave for a few hours and come home to find the house empty and a message on my machine. But his next words turned my blood to ice.

“The doctors say this is it.”

I was at the hospital in a heartbeat, rushing into his room to find the guys already gathered there, along with Jimmy’s scared and frantic parents.

Jimmy’s face sported a grimace of pain, the disease had long since reached a point where the medication did nothing to ease his pain. I knelt at his bedside and leaned close to his ear, sweeping his black bangs from his forehead.

“Jimmy.”, I whispered. “I love you. I know you’re in a lot of pain, and I want you to know, it’s okay for you to let go.” Even as the words left my mouth, I still couldn’t believe I was speaking them. “You don’t have to stay here for me, I’ll be fine.” A lie. “If you’re ready, let go. Just let go, and be free. Be free from all your pain and suffering.”

Jimmy turned his head to look at me, and I had never seen him more scared in my life. “Lyla, will you hold my hand?”

Tears squeezed from my eyes at his request, but I kept my composure and grasped his hand tightly, trying my best to hold on. “Just let go.”, I whispered. I bent over and gently kissed his lips. “I love you, Jimmy.”

As the minutes ticked by, I felt Jimmy’s grip on my hand slowly loosen, until I held his hand limp in my own. He was gone. He was gone, and I could never have him back. Once again, I kissed his lips softly, my tears falling onto his face. “I’ll miss you, Jimmy.”

*End of Flashback*

I visit his grave every chance I get, so often I could walk the path to his headstone even if I lost my sight. Often times I talk to him, sometimes fooling myself into thinking he’ll talk back. If I concentrate very hard, I can feel him sitting beside me, an unwavering presence. I can feel his hand on the back of my neck, his fingers softly brushing the skin hidden under my hair. No matter how hard I try, I can’t shake him. He’s always next to me. After all, what’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly...