The Inbetween

“Why you, Jim? Why did you have to die? Why’d you leave me?”

Jimmy felt his attention being jerked away from Leana when Faith put her hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up at her. He had been watching her more often since his discussion with Faith, and he knew that his newfound friend was worried about him. She had told him several times that he was letting himself watch his friends and family far too much, but he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t know if he was truly ready to let someone else watch them. He didn’t know if he was ready to trust someone else with them.

He didn’t know if he was ready to let go.

“Jimmy,” Faith’s comforting voice said softly. She gave him a reassuring smile before sitting down cross-legged on the ground next to him. She couldn’t see Leana like he could; she could only see a fuzzy outline of the woman that had been the love of his life on Earth. If anything, Faith could feel the raw emotion that the woman was feeling. She didn’t need to see what Leana looked like to see her heart.

Jimmy didn’t say anything to her. He didn’t know what he could say to her. He needed to find a way to let Leana know that he was still there. He knew it wasn’t allowed, and he knew that he wasn’t going to break the rules, lest something bad happen. But he needed to find some way for his wife to have closure. Because if he kept watching her break down like this over his death, it was going to break his heart more than it already was. And Jimmy wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t prepared to face another broken heart when he hadn’t truly healed over leaving her just yet.

“I know it’s hard, but you need to let go,” Faith whispered, giving his shoulder a light squeeze, a few tears of her own falling out of her eyes. She knew too well what Jimmy’s pain was. She knew how every essence of your body ached when you were watching someone you loved have an emotional breakdown such as the one his wife was in the middle of. She knew how every single piece of a person could feel broken, and she knew that sometimes, it didn’t seem like being in a place like this was worth the pain of seeing your loved ones when you couldn’t be with them.

“I can’t.”

His reply was short and simple. He knew that it was the truth. He couldn’t let go; not yet. He hadn’t been ready to leave them, so how in the hell was he supposed to let go? He didn’t understand it, and he felt a small pang of bitterness in his chest, hitting him like the serrated blade of a knife. It hurt so much more than he ever would have thought it would to see Leana from up here.

He had seen her cry over him before, and it had torn him apart just as much as it did now. And in those times, Faith had been able to pull him through. She had helped him get over his broken heart just enough so that he was able to function and do his job. But right now, he didn’t know if even Faith could pull him through.

As the days had gone by, Jimmy found himself becoming more restless. He felt as if he needed to do something; something that would let them know. He needed to do something more than just help strangers that he’d never been connected to. He knew it was because he wasn’t prepared to face his morality. He had thought he’d admitted to himself and accepted the fact that he was dead, but had he really?

There were some days when Jimmy thought this was all just a fucked up dream brought on by one too many shots of Jack and a few too many drags off a joint. Sometimes, this existence seemed so hazy and so unreal that it just simply wasn’t possible. He kept expecting to wake up, warm in his bed with Leana’s arms wrapped around him. And every morning, when that didn’t happen, he felt his heart ache.

Faith sighed, pushing her hand back through her hair. She couldn’t chastise Jimmy. She had no right to. After all, she knew only too well how hard it was to truly accept death, and to truly let go of someone. How could she tell him to do it when she couldn’t let go of the only connection she had left to the living world?

She feared for Jimmy. She could see the slow, but steady, change forming in him. She was afraid that he was getting too attached to his loved ones again; that he was going to lose focus of what he had been brought to the Inbetween for. She was afraid that he, like her life, was going to be pulled away from her. She hadn’t yet explained all there was to know about the Inbetween to him. Perhaps it was because she was afraid to explain it. Hell, perhaps it was because she was denying it.

“Jimmy,” she tried again, pulling on his shoulder when he let his attention focus back on Leana. She could see the tears burning his bright blue eyes, the red rim around them that signaled that he was far too emotional to be talked out of watching her right now. She didn’t say another word as she sat quietly beside him, letting her attention focus more on him than anything else.

It was dangerous, what he was doing. She hadn’t told him all the finer details about the Inbetween. Watching your loved ones for too long wasn’t something you were supposed to do in this place. It was as much for the loved ones’ sake as it was for theirs. The living couldn’t let go of the dead if the deceased couldn’t sever that one, last strand tying them to Earth. And if that strand couldn’t be severed, there was an intervention of sorts from Heaven.

Jimmy hadn’t met God the one time she had taken him to Heaven, and there was a reason for that. Contrary to popular Christian beliefs on earth, God was modest even in Heaven. He didn’t show himself unless there was an absolute necessity for it. He allowed things to go on as fate would have them. The only time He would intervene was if there was a need for it. And one of the main places that He intervened was in the Inbetween.

When one couldn’t get go of the living, they were ‘relieved’ of their duties as a guardian of the living. They were brought up to Heaven, where they stayed. And though it wasn’t as if Heaven was a bad place to be, she knew it wasn’t the place for people like her and Jimmy. They had been put in the Inbetween for a reason. And that reason was to save peoples’ lives. They were here so they could help restore hope; so that they could make people see the happiness in life that they neglected to see.

But how could one give hope if one didn’t feel hope? Faith knew that it was a hard question to answer. She knew that she may never get the answer; that Jimmy may never get the answer. But she knew that she needed to find a way to help her companion. He had needed her help when he had gotten to the Inbetween, and he needed her help again.

But she knew that before she could help him, she needed to help herself. She needed to let go of her last bond to humanity. She needed to do the thing that she was telling Jimmy he needed to do.

She needed to let go. She needed to say goodbye.

“Faith?” She heard Jimmy’s voice ask her, pulling her out of her thoughts immediately so she could look up at his face. He seemed to be disturbed by something, and she knew that it was something to do with his wife. She understood. Just because one was dead didn’t mean they laced the ability to feel emotions. They may be in an eternally peaceful place, but they could still feel hurt, could feel pain.

When he saw that he had her attention, he gave her a small half smile before he looked back down at the portal he was seeing Leana through. “What will happen if I try to let go of her?” He asked quietly, his voice breaking just a little as he spoke. She saw the emotion in his eyes and heard the thickness of his words, and she knew that this was a hard question for him to ask. It would be even harder to answer.

“What do you mean?” She asked him, trying to get a feel for exactly what it was that he wanted to know. She knew that he had asked her a direct question, but it was also a very broad question, with many answers. Any number of things could happen, but she needed to know what he was trying to find out.

“Am I going to forget her?” Jimmy whispered, his voice cracking even more. “Is she going to forget me? Will she finally be able to move on, or is she going to be like this until she…”

He cut himself off, because he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He didn’t want to think of Leana dying. Even if he was dead, and someday wanted to spend his eternity with her, he didn’t want to imagine a world without her beautiful smile to light it up. Faith sighed, touching his shoulder again, bringing his eyes up to her so that she had his full attention.

“You won’t forget her, Jimmy. You’ll never forget those you left behind. They ones you love…they are forever imprinted on your soul. They are a part of who you are. You gave pieces of your heart to them, and in return, they gave you small pieces of theirs. It doesn’t matter how much time passes by. I promise, you will never forget her.”

Jimmy nodded, and then looked back down at Leana again. She seemed so hurt, so alone. She needed someone…She needed him. And he was letting her down. Or at least, that was what he felt like. He was supposed to be there with her. He was supposed to be the person holding her in his arms, the one making her feel better and wiping away her tears. And he couldn’t do that now, and that was what hurt the most.

“And Leana?” Jimmy asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to this question, but he was going to ask anyway. Even if he didn’t want to know, he needed to. He needed assurance that Leana wasn’t going to forget him; that she would still let a small part of her heart love him forever, even if she moved on with someone else someday.

Faith sighed, and then looked down at the grass. This was a harder answer. This was a more diverse answer. And, in some ways, it was a more painful answer. “Do you want the truth, or do you want the lie?”

Jimmy felt tears forming in his eyes again as he looked down at Leana, unable to bring himself to look at Faith. There was that damned question again; the one she asked every time he asked her a hard question that would have a hard answer. He took a shaky breath, and then looked at her.

“The truth,” he whispered.

Faith looked into his eyes, and then gave him a watery smile. “She’ll never forget you, Jimmy.”

He nodded and then turned back to watch her, as though they hadn’t had the conversation. Faith patted his shoulder one more time, and then turned to walk away so that he would have some time to himself. She couldn’t be around him right now; she couldn’t look at him without feeling a small bit of guilt forming in the pit of her stomach.

He had asked for the truth, and she had told him a lie.