Synthetic Lover

<Devin, can you hear me? Please, wake up!>

I was holding his hand in mine, hoping that he would move or speak or something.

“Here, I got a cold towel.”
Josh placed it on Devin’s forehead and stood next to me.

“How long has he been like this?”

I held up two fingers.

“Two hours?”
I shook my head.

“Two…Two days…?!”
I shook it again.

“Two weeks?!”
I nodded.

“What the hell?! Why haven’t you called a doctor or something?!”
I shook my head once more.

“That’s not exactly an answer!”

I glanced over at a nearby desk, spotting a note pad and a pen lying on top of it.

I grabbed it and started writing.
I finished and showed it to Josh.

“A doctor can’t help him.”
“What do you mean?”

I started writing again.

“It’s hard to explain. I just know that he’s only going to get worse.”

“Y-You mean…He’s going to die?!”
I nodded.

Josh looked at me with fear.

“H-How long…?”
“I don’t know.”

He didn’t respond and sat on the edge of the bed.
He gently ran a couple of fingers through Devin’s hair.

“Please…You have to do something…! There has to be a way to save him…!”
Josh was on the verge of tears.

I bit down on my lip.

“I have to find where he put a black book.”

Josh looked up at me.

“What do you mean?”

“Devin and I are linked somehow. If you kill me normally, then Devin will die too. There has to be a way in that book.”

I stood up from the bed and wrote one last thing on the notepad.

“Keep an eye on him. I’ll be back.”

Josh nodded and I placed the notepad back onto the desk, leaving the room.
I ran down the stairs and quickly entered the study, searched every shelf and desk drawer.

I have to find it. I have to find it.

I ran past another bookshelf and stopped abruptly.

Ba-bump.

I turned towards it, searching through each book.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

One book after other.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

My chest throbbed when I placed my hand on one small book.
I quickly pulled it out and looked at the cover.

The Flower of Life was etched in gold.

I smiled to myself and opened it, flipping through the pages hoping to find something.
I stopped at one page and quickly read through it.

That’s it!

I dog-eared the page and closed the book, quickly returning back upstairs.
I stopped when I heard Josh’s voice.

“You have to make it through this, Devin. You can’t leave like this. The guys need you…! I need you…”

He wiped a tear from his cheek.

“I can’t afford to lose you, Devin…I just can’t.”

I stepped into the room and grabbed the notepad again.

“I only put up with this for so long, Ricky. Devin seemed so miserable when he lost you. I was afraid I was going to lose him too. But this whole time, you never really left him, and he seemed so happy and sure of what he was doing when I found out. But now that he’s like this…now that he’s dying right before my eyes, I can’t take it anymore!”

He wiped another tear away.

“Why couldn’t he have moved on? Why couldn’t he see past it?”

I wrote on the notepad.

“You love him, don’t you?”

He bit down on his lip and looked away from me.

“I always have. Ever since I first met him. But he fell in love with you instead, and you loved him back. I had no choice but to bite my tongue and accept it. You were my friend. You made him happy. That’s all that mattered to me.”

I sat down next to him.

“I still don’t understand Love, and I probably never will. Devin needs someone who can give him that emotion. I only take from him, never giving anything back.”

I glanced at Devin, then went back to writing.

“Can you promise me something?”
“What is it?”

“Promise me that you will take care of him. Promise me that you’ll give him what I will never be able to. He needs you, Josh. He doesn’t need me, no matter how much he thinks he does. Love him like I never could.

Can you do that?”

“I…I promise, but why are you telling me this? What’s going to happen to you?”

“I can’t really say, but I want you to be there by his side when it does happen.”