1Taking Back the Past
"Why did you have to do it?"
The voice was soft and faraway sounding, a watery feel to it that made it seem like the owner had been either crying or sneezing, or a combination of the two. It belonged to a male who held suffering and loss hidden deep in his eyes as well as his voice while he tried to keep the rest of himself looking strong. As hard as he was trying to keep in one piece, he was failing miserably at it and it was only making him break harder and faster than before he started thinking about it. But still he attempted to keep standing strong because he had promised her that he would when he found out what was going to occur.
"I told you that you shouldn't…so why didn't you listen? I was on the waiting list…" he choked out as tears forced their way to his eyes. He swallowed roughly and shook his head as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I still had time left and I was on the waiting list." There was a pause and then the sound of a fist hitting a solid surface resonated in the empty room. "Why did you have to do it, Jay?!" All attempts at holding back any sort of emotions fell away and he clenched his fists as he leaned over the open casket towards the body lying peacefully on the bottom.
He couldn't accept that she had actually gone through with her plan, no matter how many times he looked at and touched her cold and lifeless body. It was so out of character for her. It wasn't something that he could bring himself to believe. And it was killing him.
She smiled.
It was soft and sad with so many secrets behind it; secrets that no one would want to believe or hear. But they needed to be heard no matter what, and it was making her more nervous than she had ever been in her entire life, which was saying a lot. She always seemed to be nervous for whatever reason, even over the smallest things. But that was who she was: A nervous wreck.
"What did you want to tell me?" a voice asked, already full of worry and disbelief. He knew that something was going on; she hated hospitals and was terrified of them, but there she was. On his right side with her hand placed softly in his and a thin layer of sweat beading up on her palm. "Jayde, just say it. I don't want you to beat around the bush. I know that this is serious otherwise you would have just called."
He attempted to sit up, but he only got halfway before he was forced down onto his back again by the female at his bedside. A soft growl erupted from his throat as he clenched his fists and slammed then against the mattress beneath his body. It had been about a week since he had been admitted into the hospital for heart failure and he hated it. It took too much effort and energy on his part to do the simplest of things. The fact that he hated asking for help didn't help him make things easier.
"Please just lay back down and rest. This should only take a moment to explain," she said in a soft voice as tears appeared in her eyes. But the smile still remained in place even though her eyes were full of sorrow.
An uneasy silence feel between the two and the ticking of the clock was magnified ten-fold. The sounds of footsteps in the halls grew to an unbearable volume while the creaking of carts filled every nook and cranny in their ears. Still the silence continued. It was intolerable and driving both of them up the walls, but no one broke it until—
"God, damnit, Jay!"
This time he forced himself to sit completely up, ignoring the protests that he got from the brunette sitting by his side. He ignored her weak pushes on his shoulders until he was finally sitting up straight, heavy pants coming in as he breathed. Even though he was out of breath and in pain, he didn't care. There was something going on and he wanted to know what it was before she decided to leave without saying what she had gone to tell him. If he needed to, he would refuse to let her leave although he wasn't sure how he'd pull it off.
"I'm sorry, Tyler. I…I just don't know how to say it…" she mumbled as she shook her head and pulled her hand away from his uneasily. "You're in the hospital and you've been sick since we were kids. I can't stand to watch you in this much pain anymore…" Her voice faded into nothing and she turned her head away, green eyes focusing on the floor while her soft and wavy hair bounced into her face. "This is killing me, so…I've decided that I'll be the one to donate the heart…We have the same blood type, so I know that it'll work." She wrung her hands uneasily in her lap as she turned her head slightly to look at him.
"What about you?" he asked, his voice filled with shock and complete disbelief. "What about you?!" She had barely said anything to him and he was already starting to hate that she had decided to visit him because he knew that now there was nothing to do to change her mind of what she had decided. It killed him to know that she was so stubborn that she refused to listen to anyone when she made a decision because some of her choices weren't always the best ones. "When you give it to me, what are you going to do then?" he asked, his voice soft and barely audible to his ears since they were filled with the sound of the ticking clock. He knew what she was suggesting, but he didn't want to believe it.
Swallowing roughly, she choked on a whimper as she quickly shook her head and tried to keep from breaking down in front of him, but knew that she wasn't going to be able to succeed in doing so. "There is no 'what about you' with this decision. I want to do this so that you don't have to be in pain anymore and so that you can live a normal life for once. I've been living a happy life since I was born, so there's no reason for me to be selfish and remain alive when you're dying like this and have yet to live your life to the fullest…" Her voice faded to nothing as tears began to well up in her eyes and pool over the sides. "I-I just want you…to be happy, Tyler…That's all that I want for you…!"
Groaning mentally, he grabbed a hold of one of her hands and tugged on it gently until she was standing, and pulled her softly towards the bed and made her sit down on it before he wrapped his arms tightly around her. "I can't be happy knowing that you're gone, Jayde…We've been together as long as the two of us can remember and even longer…I don't know what I'd do without you always by my side…" he told her gently as he held her to his chest and rested his chin on her shoulder, his eyes shut. "We're best friends and we planned to get married…how can you just do this to our plans and what we have?" He swallowed roughly and his grip on her tightened when he felt several of her tears drip down onto his bare arms.
"You're not being selfish by keeping your own heart…you're being selfish by giving it to me and taking your life…" he whispered to her, which only caused her to start sobbing and cry even harder than before. "Please don't do this, Jay…I need you more than you'll ever know. I need you to always be by my side and tell me that things will be all right. I need you to help keep me strong and fighting. Who will do it when you're gone? I can't do this on my own."
The guilt started to hit the girl harder than before and she choked on her breath and sobs multiple times before she decided that she shouldn't even attempt to talk at the moment. There was too much going through her head and she wanted to take her choice back, she wanted to so badly, but she knew that it was already too late for it. She'd already started it and she knew that there was no taking back what she had done for the sole fact that she was almost at her ending. Maybe if she had talked to him about it beforehand she wouldn't have made the dumb decision, and she was regretting ever not saying anything to him about what she was thinking. They were best friends and lovers pretty much, but she still hadn't been able to talk to him about it.
Where was her trust and hope in him?
"P-Promise me that you'll be strong for the both of us, all right?" she managed to choke out after several more failed attempts. "Even when I'm gone, you have to promise me that you'll be strong and keep on standing even if you don't know what to do for a while. I'll watch over you no matter what and I'll wait for you until the end. But please, you also have to promise me that you'll keep going and live your life to the fullest. You have to do that-!"
"Y-You…you didn't…"
With how fast she had been speaking, he knew what was going on and that it was too late to change her mind. Even if she had paused and stumbled over her words multiple times in an attempt to slow herself down, he knew that she had already started what she had just told him that she was going to do. There had to be some sort of way to reverse what she had done, but he didn't even know what she had done and what she had taken to cause her to be poisoned slowly rather than quickly. He didn't even know where she had gotten the drugs that she had taken, and it was a mystery that he wanted to solve, but he didn't know how to ask her without seeming like he was invading her privacy. What could he do now? All that there was to do…was to accept what was going to happen in only a moment's notice.
"You should have talked to me about this before…" he choked out as he held her shaking body to him tightly, his tears coming in streams down his cheeks. "Why are you doing this to us? Why do you have to be so impulsive and do things this immense without telling me about them? You're killing me, Jayde…you're killing me…"
Quickly, she pulled his arms away from her and turned to face him, her eyes full of sorrow and unsaid apologies, and took his face gently into her hands before softly placing her lips against his. It was the only thing that she knew that she could do at the moment and she knew that there was nothing more for her to say because her time was ticking down to zero.
Ten…
"I love you, Tyler…"
Nine…
"I love you too, but…Jayde…"
Eight…
"Did you really need to do this? Was it really your only answer?" he asked as she counted seven in her head and smiled weakly, nodding her head a little. "Surely there were other options. I know that suicide is never the only option that there is, so why did you have to pick it?" His voice was full of desperation because he knew that her time was up and he wanted some answers before it was too late, but it was already getting to be too late.
Six…five…four…three…
"I didn't know what else to do…"
Two…
"I just…" She paused and shook her head as she kissed him again, counting the final number in her head before she was out of time.
One…
As slowly as she could with the amount of time left on her clock, she curled up against the male's chest and shut her eyes as she slipped her hand into his hand, giving it one final squeeze.
Zero.
Her breathing stopped and her muscles relaxed as she rested in the male's arms, her body looking so peaceful with tears dried up on her cheeks and her pale face almost glowing in the dank light of the hospital room. Desperately, he clung onto her hand, not wanting to feel her completely let go and give even more proof that she was completely gone. He just couldn't admit that it had happened and that she was going to no longer walk beside him outside and hold onto his hand as she jumped at the small things that frightened her. There would be no more midnight walks to the park to play in the sprinklers like they had done for so long.
There would be no more Jayde.
"I promise…"
Remembering their final moments together made the boy fall back onto his knees in front of the open casket as he buried his face into his hands and tried to force his tears back and keep them from falling. But no longer could he hold back those unwanted tears because he knew now, he knew, that she was never going to walk up again and that she was gone for good. As much as it hurt for him to admit it, he had to. He knew that he couldn't keep lying to himself any longer because his string of lies would fail soon enough when he ran into another one of her friends or a family member of hers and started talking to them about her. His acceptance had come, and he forced himself to his feet as he kissed his finger tips.
He reached his newly kissed fingers into the casket and gently placed them against her lips as he smiled weakly to her, shaking his head. "I don't know what more to say to you except that we'll see each other again soon," he said as he took a deep breath and silently shut the casket one final time. With several more tears shed, he turned on his heel and walked down the aisle of the church and out into the light of day once more to continue living his life.
Her story had come to a final close and had completely ended with the shutting of the church doors as Tyler walked outside, his blonde and shaggy hair shading his eyes from the sunlight. There was still more to his story, but it wasn't going to end or go the same way that Jayde had wanted it to go for the reason that he hadn't taken the heart that she wanted to give to him. He felt that there was no reason to go in and mutilate her body, so he had told her parents to take the body and bury it instead of give it to science or to the hospitals. Mother and father had agreed quickly since they had never wanted their daughter to go to such lengths as this, but they had accepted what she had done.
At least there was a body to bury.
"Goodbye, Jayde," he said as he looked up to the sky, feeling as though she was in fact watching over him with a stern look in her eyes while a smile was placed on her lips. "We'll meet again soon. I'm sure of it." With that, he said no more and shoved his hands into the pockets of the black suit that he was wearing, ignoring the scorching heat.
A wind passed by and he could have sworn that he heard her voice one last time in that wind. It was one word, but it meant the world to him and he was glad to get some kind of response to his lover watching over him and it caused him to shake his head with a smile and shed a few more tears.
"Goodbye…"