Cemetery boy

The cemetery is pitch black. The only light is coming from the lamp across the street, I pull my coat up a bit: it’s not even that cold but I feel like doing something with my hands. I lean up against the vine covered wall and take out another cigarette. Him being late was beginning to get on my nerves, although at the time I wouldn’t admit it, there was another much stronger emotion developing in my head...worry, terrified that something had happened to him and he would simply vanish from my life with no trace that he was there at all.

“Prick...” I mutter to no one in particular as I take another drag

“Likewise Darling” Although I’m sure my heart stopped beating at the sound of his voice I didn’t move or turn my head to see him now standing beside me...where only a second ago was filled with empty air.

“You’re the one that’s late” I reply in an almost child-like manner

He moved closer to me but still not close enough to touch, I could feel his cool breath as he watched me take in another drag

“I’m taking you out” He said suddenly and grabbed my hand to pull me into the darkness of the cemetery

“What?”

I dropped my cigarette along the way as he held me close in the darkness; my feet stumbled over graves, tree roots and who knows what else. Brendon, being annoying simply drifted along soundlessly and tugging me behind him with a gigantic grin that even I could see in the darkness.

All of a sudden he stopped and I barged into him

“Watch it” I recoil automatically, Brendon’s smile doesn’t falter for a second

All of a sudden he wraps his arms around me “Well this is romantic” I say sarcastically “We can make out on your dads grave, I’m sure he’ll approve”

Brendon pulls me closer to his chest...and I couldn’t think of all the annoying things I was planning on saying “Just do me a favour and hold me as and as tight as you can while keeping your eyes closed”

“Is this some really bad pick up line or something?” He let out a light laugh

“Something like that” He holds me close to his chest and I try and avoid breathing for a while, he smells sweet, I can’t put my finger on it,- it’s the same smell that sunshine has. Everyone says that sunshine has no smell—but it does, memories of childhood: they always smell like sunshine. I feel a slightly dizzy for a moment

“Whats happening?”

“We’re teleporting” He said in a slightly smug tone, and when I say slightly I mean that I could tell he thought he was shit.

“... when you open your eyes again we shall be standing in front of the cinema”

I can feel a slight breeze in my hair, as if I’m standing at the train station when the train is coming. I open my eyes as the strange breeze dyes down, and just as he said...we we’re standing outside the cinema. Okay, there’s no denying that that was a tad bit cool

“I feel as though I’m from Harry Potter” I mutter softly

Brendon smiled “Come on, lets’ see this bad quality teenage girl movie”

****

The movie, I’m sure it was good, but my mind couldn’t concentrate on this film. It was all so mundane and normal and boring. Some guy in a suit questioning the meaning of life...ends up taking lots of marijuana and gets shot by his neighbour: nothing I haven’t seen before...
I turn with a sigh to Brendon who actually seemed quite interested in the film; I move closer to him slightly, he doesn’t seem to notice. A quick glance around assures me that there are very few people in the cinema, none of which are close to us. I smile in the darkness as an idea comes to my head. I get up to sit in his lap; childish things like this amuse me.

His entire body stiffens as my body presses against his. I kiss him straight away and just like before he takes a moment to fall into the kiss. I move away for a moment in order to straddle him, we’re so close now, I can feel his heart pounding underneath his thin shirt. I run my tongue over his bottom lip, seeking entrance, of course he obliges and in doing so pulls me closer....I smile slightly in the kiss...he wasn’t joking when he said he was a virgin.

I don’t even bother muffling all the noises we’re both probably making but it’s not like I care about the people in the cinema. I run my hand underneath his shirt and he makes a low noise at the back of his throat before pushing me away

“Look, umm, Ry just not...not here okay”

He got up awkwardly and practically ran to the bathrooms, I followed him silently, giving a gigantic grin to the couple that we were closest to us and who looked slightly traumatised.
I enter the bathroom just as Brendon’s about to close the door

“Sorry” I mutter “I think I might have wreaked this for you"

“—you didn’t wreak it” Brendon said too quickly “It’s my fault, I should have realised that something as simple as this would have bored you”

I couldn’t see if his tone was sarcastic or not, I apologise again anyway...

“...I think I might know something that might be more fitting to your taste...I originally didn’t want you to go because I didn’t want you getting mixed up with my family”

I stare “I didn’t know you had a family....”

*****

“Ryan...ryan, you can open your eyes now”

I don’t think that I could ever really get used to this whole disappearing and reappearing thing anytime soon

I open my eyes and fall back onto my bed; Brendon found it amusing that I disliked it so much, that I felt the need to hold on really tightly...not that I think he minded that part to be honest

“Well” Brendon began “I should probably start by telling you about the Shadowlands—which is where I’ll be taking you...It’s where I once live”

Brendons expression grew distant

“It’s the in-between place. The house I showed you—that’s the pathway to the Shadowlands. Where everything is grey and black. I’m the only thing that actually lives there...it’s why I liked you so much. You’re just so alive”

How strange he thought of me like that. I always thought of myself as rather dead.

“And to explain my family...well I’m not actually related to any of them, it’s just that they are the only other deaths"

“The ‘other’ deaths” I repeat

Brendon’s lips twitched, I don’t think he liked talking about it

“Well there was the original death—that you know as the grim reaper, and he was the most powerful death that had ever lived...but then he fell in love”

“what?”

“It was a girl that he was saw as so beautiful he couldn’t bear to touch her...so she never died, she became old and lost any sense of her once beautiful self, so she lived forever—she never knew why because she had never seen death. But as she grew older and older she became weak and unable to move. It killed death to see her like that, and he fell apart—into seven pieces. These seven pieces of death were a blessing and curse. They choose those that had not yet passed into the darkness and gave them the choice of immortality over death. I choose immortality...my brothers are the reason I’m not constantly in the half-light...the pathway to the darkness”

I stared “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard”

“I think it’s horrible”

“Is she still alive...the woman that lived forever?”

“Yes, she’s called the grey lady now; she’s the closest thing any of us have to a mother, you’ll be meeting here tommorrow

“Are there such thing as ghosts?”

“Yes...they haunt the Shadowlands, we call them half-lights...their lost and alone forever, it only happens when something’s holding them back”

I wrapped my arms around him and I pulled him close to me. Brendon knew that something was up, that there was something making me behave like an overly affectionate, anxious teenage girl. I pull away suddenly.

“I’m sorry Ryan” he whispered “You have no idea how much I want to be mortal” It’s funny that...the way he always knows exactly what’s wrong

“Well wanting isn’t fucking good enough” my anger scared me I got up out of bed and refuse to look at him, I hadn’t been angry like this in quite a while

“I could be a half light” I said softly “...a ghost”

Brendon’s eyes widened as I said the word ghost and he was silent, he considered it for a mere second, the thought of me being dead...

“No.” He said simply

I nod absentmindedly and begin taking my shirt off

“Ryan? What are you doing?”

I glance at him, he was staring at my chest...for some reason. Give him a questioning look

“I’m going to bed—it’s nearly midnight and there’s this thing that I like called sleep”

“Last night” he said slowly “You wore pyjamas”

I laugh and begin undoing my skinny jeans where I was only wearing boxers

“Last night it was raining and cold, tonight it is hot, therefore I only go to bed in my boxers”

Brendon turns onto his back and I believe was trying really, really hard to not think about the fact that all I was wearing was boxers. I smile and get into bed next to him

“Don’t worry, If you get ‘problem’ I shall help you” I press against him, to which

Brendon replies

“You’re not exactly helping here Ry”

*****

Brendon had fallen asleep almost straight away, and so did I. However something woke me up. A voice, it could have been in my room, it could have been in my head: one thing however was for sure—that it wasn’t my own. I heard it while I was pondering over the fact that he lived forever:If only there was a way for me to live forever or for him to live as a mortal

...it came as a whisper

“Well maybe, little George, there is a fluffy ending in this after all”

I open my eyes in a fright...the voice had some sort of sleazy quality to it

“Ryan?”*yawn “... is everything okay?” Brendon muttered half asleep

“Fine” I lied automatically “Everything is fine”