Your Voice Was The Soundtrack Of My Summer

Some light acoustic song played in the stereo and the television was mute, showing a myriad of music videos that were only pleasant to look at, although the noise burned our ears.

Indigo was on top of me, leaning her head onto my chest so she could hear my heart rate beating faster and faster. She weighed lighter than a feather, and what hurt me the most was not her weight but her joints, when they accidentally jabbed me in the stomach at an intense part in the music video. One way or another, her bones hurt.

Then without warning, she turned over, and I felt her elbows cutting through my ribcage, I wanted to shout, but I didn’t, considering after shifting her position, her elbows were on either side of me, and only her lips were making contact with my face, and her weight was all on me, but I didn’t mind that.

She engaged her lips with mine, and I felt a sultry wave of lust as she relaxed into my arms. It pained me to think that this was the farthest we would ever go and maybe the last time we could do something like this.

I pulled her closer if that were possible and she broke away in surprise, her eyes looking at me questionably. I gave her my puppy dogface and she laughed as I touched her lips. Our tongues were exploring each others mouths and then I stopped. Just stopped.

Indigo pulled away and looked at me dejected.

“Paul, what’s wrong?” she asked, lifting her weight off of me and lying beside me on the couch instead.

“This is it. This is the farthest we can go. This is the last time we can do something like this,” I told her, looking at her, with sincere eyes.

She nodded and just looked at me to go on.

“I feel like I have to do something more with you, I feel like this isn’t enough,” I confessed.

“Like what?” she whispered, her voice almost inaudible.

“I want to take you to Paris, to Australia. I want to do everything with you. I want to be your first. I want you to live. But it’s too late,” I disconsolately told her, my tone going lower at the last sentence.

She was quiet for awhile, her eyes looking down and not at me. She was biting her lip, she was clenching her fists, from anger, from fear. She shook her head and tears started to course down her cheek.

“You’ve already done all of that and more,” she quietly told me. Shaking her head and looking at me through teary eyes she looked beautiful.

Her eyes resembled stars. Her hair resembled silk. Her face resembled pearl.

I don’t know how wretched and wrong this world was by taking away such a beautiful face.

I reached out and touched her face, wondering if I was the luckiest guy in the world or maybe the unluckiest.

Fate would have to wait.
I didn’t know I had the capability to create hearts and love.
But whatever you make I guess you to eventually break.

And as I held her that night, it never escaped my mind that this was the last time she would ever be anywhere else but a hospital.

-

I woke up to the sun, tattooing it’s heat on my skin. The windows were open wide, my eyes felt a burning sensation and Indigo wasn’t there.

Did I just die and go to hell?

I turned around, and I realized I was in my house, lying on the sofa, without an Indigo to be seen. I felt an aching in my heart as I knew something painful was going to be happening today, but I just couldn’t remember what.

“Paul? Paul? You finally awake?” I heard a faint voice call from the kitchen. I turned to see my mother form the corner of my eye, packing her things for work.

“Mom, where’s Indigo?” I demanded, breathing almost out of impatience and giddy anxiousness.

“Well, honey, she said she had to leave…” I didn’t let my mother continue, instead I ran outside, remembering instantly what that aching and throbbing in my heart was for.

I kept running, knowing that I would be sent back. But that didn’t matter. I felt the hot pavement against the soles of my feet, permeating its rough asphalt skin onto my feet. That wouldn’t stop me. If they stopped me, I would still not be happy with the satisfaction of trying. I had to.

I didn’t even think twice about my clothes. All I cared about was Indigo.

I ran to her house, skipping the Kelly green porch steps four by four. I rang the creamy egg white doorbell in its elaborate frame hoping that someone, preferably Indigo, would open the door and tell me I was just waking up from a bad dream.

No such luck. I rang it at least six times before I knocked on the dark green door. My knuckles were red and sore by the time I was convinced that they were not ignoring me and were already gone.

I shook my head, wondering how stupid I could possibly be. Why did I run? I could have gotten my car and drove to the hospital where she was likely to be.

I cursed myself as I slowly walked back home, letting the hot asphalt burn my toes, sort of self inflicting torture, like Jesus had to when he was going up to his cross.

I saw my mom waiting outside by the sidewalk, shading her eyes from the sun, looking at me as if I was a crazed asylum escapee.

“Paul? I don’t understand! Please, at least get dressed and explain to me what is happening,” my mother asked, looking at me with her concerned face. I shook my head, maybe later mom.

I changed into something more suitable and ran back outside. I saw my mother, shading her eyes, still wondering why I was rushing without a single word emitting from my mouth.

“Paul,” my mother’s voice was adamant now.

“It’s Indigo, she’s in the hospital,” I finally told her, secretly begging her to let me go and not to interrogate me at a time like this.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Come on, I can drive you there,” my mom, opened the shotgun seat door for me to sit in.

I fought with myself wondering if I should take her up on the offer. I decisively let her win, on the fact that she was a much more experienced driver and could race the streets without getting caught, unlike I who would crash into stop signs before the sheriff would give me tickets for each and every stop sign I ran over and for defacing government property.

She got in hastily, pulling the seatbelt diagonally across her body, pulling on the gearshift rather more harshly than usual. She looked at the rosary hanging from the mirror and silently did the Sign of the Cross and placed both hands on the steering wheel. She was just about to back up and she looked over to me, and I couldn’t imagine what I looked like.

Paul, in his long boxer patterned pants and an old band shirt with uncombed hair –not that it usually was combed- and she shook her head, but she didn’t back up, the car didn’t move.

“Mom?!” I almost yelled, glaring at her through surprised and urgent eyes.

“Put on your seatbelt Paul,” she said. I rolled my eyes, my mother was just too unbelievable sometimes. I grabbed the buckle and pulled the gray strap and pulled it across my body, and only until I fastened the belt and heard the metal clink did my mom start pulling away into the driveway.

She turned up the volume on the Golden Oldies station, which was playing a Cheap Trick’s Surrender. I hated to think how the first couple lines related to my position entirely.

“Mom? Why are you doing this?” I asked her as she took a dangerous swerve after narrowly missing a dog that walked across the street.

“Because, honey, I love you,” she kept her eyes straight on the road not even looking at me.

Somehow her words struck hard. Sure, she told me those words a million times a day and every night when I was younger and she told me bed time stories. But never did the words have an impact on me. Maybe it was because I found Indigo and she helped me find the real meaning of love, even though she insisted on it not being real and it was only a form of ‘magic’. But we found our magic. When my mom said those words so carelessly I understood everything and yet another puzzle piece fell into place.

I smiled at those words, despite our mission we were on. I understood the pain, the hardship she went through just to make sure I was alive here and not some hobo on the street selling drugs for a living with inches of tattoos lining my skin.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

We arrived at the hospital five minutes later.

The hospital had those revolving doors that I got stuck in once when the power went down in a hotel and I was stuck in between for hours. We glided past them smoothly and I entered the hospital and saw white walls staring at us back and a reception area with busy nurses filing folders and writing down important notes. People were either crying or holding a newborn babe in their arms, with balloons in the gift shop saying either Get Well Soon or It’s A Boy/Girl!

I saw a side of her that probably only existed in the teenage her. I guess that side of her vanished when she exchanged wedding vows with my father. She was threatening the nurses with various threats because they denied us access to Indigo’s room. The nurses were persistent. My mom was obstinate.

She won. As we walked through the corridors of the white washed walls I couldn’t help but admire her indignant ways.

The numbers were, 737. The door was a pale brown with the navy blue numbers sticking out prominently against the wooden door. I turned the cold silver handle, my mom quietly pushing me forward.

I peered in, almost scared of what my eyes would meet. My mom urged me forward. I saw an older lady, maybe in her mid 30s, leaning over the stretcher and consoling the patient. She turned her attention to us, revealing a faint Indigo lying on the stretcher with suctions on her body and a hospital gown.

“Paul!” her voice was faint but cheerful all the same.

“Indi, Mrs. Saunders,” I nodded my head at her mother, before running to Indigo and gathering her in my arms.

“Paul, I…” she started, but I placed a finger on her lips.

“Don’t apologize,” I shook my head, and only when she nodded did I remove my fingers.

“I had to leave, I didn’t want you to be rushing or anything, but I had to,” she trailed; still trying to find words that didn’t say I’m Sorry.

“But I did anyways,” I shrugged.

She nodded in acceptance and I held her hand tight.

“Indigo, don’t this,” I said in defeat, putting her hand to my lips as if we were back in those days where pedophiles would kiss a lady’s hand at a masquerade.

I heard either one of the moms emit a noise, but I didn’t turn my head to see who it was.

“Paul, it’s not like I can help it,” Indigo shook her head, smiling sadly at me.

“I know, I know, but truthfully I feel cheated on this whole thing,” I admitted, looking at her in the eyes.

“Cheated?” she repeated unsteadily.

“Cheated. One summer isn’t enough to spend with you,” I told her, holding her hand tightly, squeezing it, and hoping that maybe I could squeeze out everything she did not need. Her stupid AIDS, her frail and weak state, this hospital.

“Cheated? Paul, if anyone feels cheated it’s me. I’m cheated of my time and my life. My would be life,” she corrected, her eyes were watering and I wanted so bad to wipe it away to tell her everything would be okay and she would get better, but that would a lie, a lie I wanted to believe in, that we both wanted to believe in so bad.

At this point a nurse walked in, holding a syringe in her fingers looking sweetly at the both of us and eyeing our mothers at the same time.

“I’m sorry to break this up lovebirds, but this isn’t Grey’s Anatomy. She needs her meds sweetie, so I’m going to ask you to leave as politely as I can,” the nurse told me through lipstick-stained teeth.

“All right, just a second,” Indigo told the nurse, straining her neck to see the nurse, who was trying her best not to be irritated.

“Just keep this with you,” Indigo whispered tentatively.

I was endlessly wondering what possible item she was going to give me. I held out my hand, the one that wasn’t holding on to her and looking at her fingers that were closed into a tight fist I realized how small her fingers were, how pale they were.

Her lips suddenly touch mine, quickly and while it wasn’t passionate it was desperate.
I felt the urgency and the race against time as she pressed her soft lips against my unexpecting ones.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was. It couldn’t be allowed, that such a young girl with so much potential would be taken away fromme Earth at such an early age.

I blinked my tears away.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this.