I FIND HIM NEAR THE window, watching the rain pour down on the grass outside. I have been struggling with myself all morning, with what I need to tell him, with whether or not I can physically say the words to him. I want to tell him not to mourn me for too long, that it is okay to be sad for a while, but then he has to snap out of it. I want to tell him to smile, to find a way to be happy. I want to tell him so many things and yet all the words in the world seem inadequate in the face of the storm we are approaching.
He feels me behind him, his body straightening. A moment later he is turning to face me. I can tell he is trying to hide his pain, but it seeps out in the lines around his mouth, the darkness beneath his eyes. I hate what this is doing to him, I hate watching him trying to break through the despair that wants to pull him down. He's trying so hard to be strong for me.
"When I..." I trail off, tears burning my eyes. I gather my courage and try again. "When I—"
"Stop," he says in a bleak voice. "Don't even say it."
"I have to. There are things I need to tell you before...just...before."
"No."
A small smile claims my lips. "You're being stubborn."
The fury is swift and potent. “I don't care. I don't want to hear whatever it is you feel the need to tell me. I can believe whatever the hell I want to believe. Who are you to take that away from me? If I want to believe one day you will be miraculously cured, than I get to. You said you had a choice, right? Well, so do I. And I don't choose to believe I'm going to wake up one day and you won't be there. That's my decision. That's what I want.”
I nod and the slight motion releases a trail of tears from my eyes. “All right."
He presses his lips to mine and higher yet, warmth spreading through me at the touch of his lips to my forehead. I wrap my arms around his hard frame and hold on tight.
"We're going to be fine," he tells me.
I inhale, nodding. We will be. After it is all over and faded with time, he will be okay as well.
He takes a shuddering breath, his body trembling against mine. “Don't let the future dictate the present. You're stronger than that.”
“It's official; I rubbed off on you.”
“I know. Don't tell anyone.” Rivers stares at me, his eyes shining with wetness as he moves back. His hands forms into fists at his sides. “I don't want you to go,” he whispers.
I look down. “I don't want to go either.” I walk to the window and touch the cool pane of glass, watching the sky's tears blur it—or maybe those are mine. I look up just as a tear is released and slides down his scarred cheek. “I hate seeing you so sad. I hate what this is doing to you. I didn't want this. I don't want you to be sad.”
He shows me his taut back. I stare at the hard muscles, tense beneath his shirt. I want to ease the strain from them, but keep my distance. “All of this is bull shit.” He whirls around, his features darkened by pain. “This shouldn't be happening. Not to you.”
“Rivers—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“No.” His jaw is clenched. “Don't tell me some philosophical crap that's supposed to make this all okay. It isn't okay. It will never be okay.” He stares at me, his chest rising and lowering faster the longer his eyes are locked with mine. And then his face crumples just before he covers it with his hands.
I move for him, pulling his hands away. He resists me at first, but then it becomes too much and he sinks into me instead of trying to push me away. His fingers cup the back of my neck and he lowers his head to rest against the side of my face, his arms moving up to lock me to him. He pushes us back until I am to the wall and he is pressed against me. He's trying to meld us together, to give me his strength, his will, to continue to live. He's trying to give me his life. I feel it in the confined darkness trembling through his body with the need to lash out in grief, and my heart swells for him.
“I would trade places with you if I could,” he tells me brokenly.
“I know. And I'm sorry I have to leave you."
“What am I supposed to do with you gone?” he whispers against the side of my neck.
“Keep living.” I close my eyes and turn my face to kiss the corner of his mouth. I take a deep breath and say softly, "At the beginning of summer, I asked myself what it all meant, what it was all about—this whole living and dying business. I wanted to know why there was so much pain in life, why others hurt others, why we hurt ourselves. Why we have to die before we've lived a whole life. I wanted to know the point of it all. I know now." I press a kiss to his shoulder.
He tightens his hold on me, quietly listening.
"First of all, you can be eighty years old and not really haved lived; just as you can be eighteen years old and have lived enough for two. It's all about perspective. And the meaning of it all...it's about not being scared to live, no matter what it brings you. It's about not being scared to love, no matter if you eventually lose it. It's about forgiveness and acceptance. And hope—it has to be about hope. It's about knowing, sometimes, there are no answers, and you don't necessarily have to be okay with that, but you have to know that whether you're okay with it or not, that's just the way it is."
We stand like this for an indefinite amount of time, and yet when he pulls away, I miss him immediately. I smile at him, in awe that I am with him, that he is with me. I will hold this love close to me, close to my heart, and I will live in the overwhelming wonder of it. “I didn't get to choose whether or not I wanted my life this way, but there was one thing I did choose. It was you. I chose you.”
The breath he takes is stuttering and he tugs me back to him, enclosing me in his arms that make me forget I can be truly okay anywhere outside of them. His arms protect me from the ensuing darkness, from the night that never truly goes away.
He murmurs, “I chose you.”
RIVERS IS ON A QUEST to show me all the wondrous moments I have missed while wrongfully looking down on sports. One day, he made me play catch with a football. He decided I'd already showed enough of my prowess with a basketball not to have to endure that again. We went roller skating—I stayed on my feet all of five seconds. He wanted me to try golf, but I argued and argued until he relented and we spent the afternoon playing mini-golf instead. Not that I was any better at that, but at least I had fun hitting the ball up and down the green mat.
I know what he's doing—he's making sure I experience all the things I have not thus far before it is too late. He's forcing me to live; just like I forced him to. And tonight, we're watching baseball.
The stadium is huge. I mean, massive. Rows upon rows wrap around the ball field, each filled with an incredible amount of people. The layering of voices is just one loud buzzing. I don't think I have ever been around so many people at once. I find I don't like it all that well. I tighten my grip on Rivers' hand as we take our seats and face the field below us. It's a night game, but you wouldn't be able to tell it's dark out with all the lights ablaze within the vicinity.
"Thomas used to take me to a Brewers game every summer."
I adjust the Brewers cap Rivers got me and look at him from under the bill of it. "Why'd he stop?"
He shrugs, looking at a man walking up the stairs to the left of us. "I don't know. I guess he decided it wasn't necessary anymore. I think he wanted to love me, but his insecurities wouldn't allow him to, not in the way he should." He nods at the man. "He's a computer programmer and spends his weekends living in a wondrous haze of role-playing video games."
I study the chubby man with balding blond hair and glasses, noting the strain on his face. "He lives at home with his mom and his bedroom is beneath hers. She thumps her cane on the floor when she wants him to turn the computer off."
He grins. "His avatar is a Viking with long, beautiful locks of blond hair and he calls himself Hans."
"His online girlfriend is big and busty and thinks he's sexy in a geeky kind of way."
Giving me a strange look, he tosses a handful of popcorn into his mouth. "Her name is Betsy and she sells makeup."
"They're going to meet this fall."
"And he's going to move in with her, wherever she lives, if for no other reason than to escape his battleaxe mother."
I grin and sip my fruit punch. The air is electric with energy, the crowd alive with anticipation for the game to start. I feel it pulsate through me and even I am anxiously tapping my shoes against the bench.
"You look so cute in that hat," he murmurs, grabbing the bill of the baseball cap, flipping it around to reveal my face, and pressing his lips to mine. He tastes like butter and fruit punch.
"Have you talked to Thomas much since everything? I mean, are you guys all right?" I ask when he releases me, leaning back as three girls shuffle past us to get to their section. I can tell he doesn't want to talk about it, especially now, but he had to have brought him up for some reason.
"He called me a few nights ago when you were out riding your bike."
"And?" I prompt when he apparently loses his ability to talk.
He glances at me, offering the bag of popcorn. It's a stall tactic and my look tells him I know it is. He knows I don't like popcorn. "We talked about you. We talked about college. My car. That day on the river. He apologized, said he never wanted that to happen. He wants to take me fishing the next time he comes back." He becomes quiet and I patiently wait. He snorts, shaking his head. "The fact that we talked about anything of significance is monumental. He's trying, I'll give him that. I don't think we'll ever be what I would like us to be; I just don't think it's possible, but maybe we can be something."
"So it was a good talk."
A small smile captures his lips as he nods. "Yeah. I guess it was."
"And you're going fishing." I bump my arm to his.
The crowd shoots to life, droning out his answer. The game is about to start. He gets to his feet, pulling me up with him, and we grin at each other as music blares out of the overheard speakers. The grin turns mischievous, apprehension flashing through me just as the crowd quiets down.
"You can stop thinking you need to be more like me now," I hiss into his ear as I clutch his shoulder to keep him from straightening up and doing whatever it is he is planning on doing.
"You only live once," he counters, tugging away. "And anyway, you imprinted yourself onto my soul, so...you're there, for always. You're a part of me." Half of his mouth lifts. "You're just going to have to deal with it."
And he flings his arms out wide, tilts his head back, and shouts so loudly my ears ring, "I love you, Delilah Marie Bana! Who is not related to Eric Bana!" Bodies turn our way as eyes zero in on us, and Rivers just laughs, tugging me to him and monopolizing my mouth with his. He has such gifted lips. Beautiful mind. Lovely heart.
"I wouldn't be able to do this for anyone else," he whispers into my ear.
"Do what?" I whisper back, my heart pounding.
"Be me."
My being sighs in response and I tighten my hold on him, loving him with all of me, loving him with everything. His body may have been fragmented at one point, but his soul has always been indestructible. I smile as we kiss again, thinking of all the many ways we can be torn down and damaged, but where it really counts, we remain impenetrable—a fortress against the onslaught of all the heartache life can bring. Whole.
STAYING IN THIS CABIN IS like taking a piece of perfection in a world of heartache and living on it. When I sit in the quiet, and focus on the wood of the walls around me, I can imagine I am safe from it all. If I just stay inside, death won't catch me. It's silly, I know. The cabin has one bedroom, a small kitchen area that opens into a living room, and a bathroom. It's tiny, but cozy. And I love it. I don't think there could be a more fitting place to spend the rest of my days.
My mom fired me. I went to work yesterday and she literally said, "You're fired." At first I sputtered incoherently, and then when my brain started to work properly again, I asked why. She said because I don't need to be working when I could be enjoying the rest of the summer. Not that I disagree; it just came as a shock. I told her cleaning is my idea of fun and she said that is exactly what she meant and pushed me out the door.
I thought about her words as I drove to the cabin, and I decided she was right. I did have a trip I meant to take and I can't not do it. That would be like giving up a sliver of joy when all I get are tiny slices of it at a time. In other words, it would be stupid. And Rivers needs to lighten up as well. He's walking around in a fog of gray. Honestly, I almost feel like he is the one with this stupidass brain malfunction instead of me. I told him he was a melodramatic punk a couple of nights ago and he stormed out of the cabin. I let him go, knowing not every day is going to be a picture of pretty flowers and rainbows. There will be thunderstorms, and there will be lightning. There will be downpours.
Sometimes he cries at night. When he thinks I am sleeping, I feel the tremble of his body beside mine, I hear the pain that escapes though he tries so hard to hold it in for me. It isn't every night, but even one night is too much. In the light, he tries to smile. But in the dark his stoic wall crumbles. I cannot stand this. Rivers hurting hurts me. I take his smiles in the daytime and I take his pain in the nighttime, one with joy and one with sorrow.
This has to end.
There are good days and bad days. Days I don't want to get out of bed, days when the pain in my head makes it impossible to get out of bed. There are days when Rivers cannot look at me without tearing up and my mother cannot speak around the grief closing her throat. Days when it takes Monica to forcefully remove Rivers from the cabin and make him do something inconsequential, like fly a kite. I have a list made up of things for him to do when the despondency gets too thick and neither of us can breathe.
I have a similar list for my mother, but hers isn't made up of unimportant events to get her mind off the undeniable truth. Her list is made up of two requests. Think of me when you look at your flowers, and, Call him. I truly hope she does. Even if he never cares to speak to her again, even if he has another family and another life, it will be good for her. And maybe he'll be just as happy to hear her voice as I know she will be to hear his.
Monica is my champion. I know it has been hard for her with Thomas gone, but I think the fact that she has me to boss her around actually helps. It keeps her preoccupied. And even after I am gone, she knows I will still be counting on her to hold Rivers and my mother up when they need someone to carry them. And they will be there for her as well. They won't let her fall.
She misses Thomas, I can tell. Or maybe she just misses the idea of him. She is sad, but she also seems like a strain has been removed from her. Her footsteps are lighter, her frown lines are less distinguished. Whether people treat us right or not, or deserve us or not, it is hard to let go of what we know. But I watch her with her son and my mother and I know they are all going to get through this.
They have each other, and in each other, they will always have me.
It is the middle of August. Rivers tested for his GED and passed. School at the tech starts in a few weeks and we will be in attendance. Everything is moving forward as it should, and one day I will too. I sit at the small table in the sparsely furnished cabin, tapping my fingers as I wait for him to get back from the job he started a week ago at the hardware store in town—the job I told him to take because he was driving me insane with his endless hovering and tragic eyes. I can only take so much sorrow before I fall apart and cannot put myself back together.
Two suitcases sit by my feet, my foot occasionally bumping them as my leg nervously jerks back and forth in beat with my foot. I hear the car as the tires meet with gravel and wait. When he opens the door, the frantic pace he moves with turns to a full stop as he takes me in, averting his panicked eyes from me.
I fight the impulse to comment on his obvious distress and then find myself doing it anyway. "Is that what you do every day? Leave with dread only to return with it?"
Rivers swipes a hand through his dark hair. "No. Maybe."
"I want you to stop." I get to my feet, anger causing my whole being to tremble. "I want you to stop being sad all the time. And stop—stop crying, okay? I can't take it anymore."
"Yeah. I'll just flip a switch and it'll all be good. How's that?" He notices the bags at my feet and freezes. "What are those for?"
"I can't keep doing this," I tell him, my throat thick.
His eyebrows furrow as he looks at me with incomprehension. "What are you telling me? What are you doing, Del?" he demands, fear roughening his voice. He crosses the room to me. "Tell me what you're doing."
I slide a rectangular piece of paper toward him. He picks it up, studying the words. He looks at me, waiting. I pick up the other piece of paper and hand it to him.
"These are two Amtrak tickets," he finally says.
I nod. "We need to leave within an hour. We're escaping. No more sadness. I am drowning in it and I'm going to go insane. I know you are too. I don't want to be crazy on top of everything else when I die." He glares at me and I shrug. "Just keeping it real. It's the six-day trip through Memphis and New Orleans. Graceland, baby, and voodoo." I wiggle my eyebrows at him.
Rivers rests the tickets against his lips, slowly nodding. "Yeah. Let's do it. But Delilah—"
I grab the lighter of the suitcases and look up, going still at the darkness of his gaze.
"You don't get to take my sadness away, all right? And sometimes, you're right, it gets to be too much, but I can't feel bad about that, because I just—I love you so much, and...this is shredding me. I'm sorry if that hurts you to hear, but it's true." His eyes are red-rimmed as they meet mine. "And also...I'll try to stop being such a melodramatic punk."
"Good," I say softly. "Because there can only be one of those in this relationship, and that's already me. You know, fainting and whatnot. Anything to get a little attention."
The smile he gives me is full of white and black. He takes the suitcase from me and picks up the other one as well. "I love you and all your attention-seeking antics."
"That's good. Just wait until the finale. It's going to be epic." The look he gives me tells me that was too much. "It's either joke about it or bawl my eyes out," I tell his back.
He swings the door open, calling over his shoulder, "Drama!"
THE INSIDE OF THE TRAIN reminds me of images I've seen of the interiors of commercial planes. There are rows of seats in pairs with an aisle separating another row of the same. It is the middle of the week and I'm glad, because I think a lot more of the seats would be taken if it was on the weekend. It smells like hot synthetic leather mixed with coffee. Rivers is beside me, reading a book.
As the train begins to roll down the tracks, I bounce in my seat. I am so ready for an adventure. Although, this whole summer has sort of already been one. This final trip makes it complete. I realize I made my own bucket list without even knowing it. I think of the people I love, and I think of them years from now, and I really feel that they will be happy, if for no other reason than I have been demanding it of them. Dying has some perks, you know? People want to fulfill your last requests.
I glance at Rivers and find him watching me with warmth in his eyes. "I'm excited," I explain.
"I thought you just had to pee."
I laugh. A teenager walks past with dark makeup, black clothing, and spiky brown hair. "She's in a rebellious faze. She's actually an honor student and wants to be a doctor, but she is struggling to find the real her and experimenting with her exterior in her quest for individuality."
He blinks, setting his book aside to find the girl in question. "She actually wants to be a veterinarian. She loves animals and tries to take home strays any chance she can. Her parents put a stop to that after the third cat, but they don't know about the dog she's keeping at her boyfriend's until she can talk them into letting her bring it home."
"They don't know about the boyfriend either, though, so that is going to make it tricky." I search the train for another story, settling on an elderly couple. "They fell in love right out of high school. He worked for her dad, helping out on the farm. She brought lemonade out to him one hot day and they smiled at one another and that was it."
"They have two children and seven grandchildren." As we watch, the man lifts the woman's hand to his lips and places a kiss to it. My heart fills with the soft sigh of watching love in action. Rivers is quiet for a moment, his voice low and uneven as he says, "There were days when they thought about giving up. He thought being a farmer wasn't good enough for her. She thought getting a job would help out with bills. They both had good intentions, they both had the other in mind, but pride got in the way, putting a strain on them and their love."
"But they always had laughter. They always found a way around the difficult times, because even though they thought about giving up, they never did. They never could."
Rivers pulls his cell phone from his pocket and holds it up to us, turning the camera so we are within its frame. "Tell me their story."
I look at his dark eyes in the screen as I begin. "Their story isn't a fairytale, but that's okay, because fairytales are predictable, and sometimes boring. It's funny how you can be around someone almost all of your life and not know them. That's sort of what it was like for them. They were constantly missing each other."
"Until they were shoved together." He smiles and I smile. The camera flashes and he puts the phone away. Under his breath, almost to himself, he says, "It's weird being thankful for something terrible."
I bump my arm to his. "He was such a pain in the ass, but that just made her even more determined to straighten him out."
"She was kind of abusive, forcing him to eat ice cream and grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He was traumatized for a long time about that."
"He talked about being a pilot and she hoped he never forgot that, no matter what happened."
His fingers interlace with mine. "He wouldn't. I won't. I can't promise I'll do it, but I can promise I won't forget the dream."
My eyes soften. "She thought he had everything, but found he was still searching for that one unnamable thing that makes a person feel like they finally figured out what is most important to them."
"He saw her golden eyes shining like fire and life and knew he'd finally found it."
"Their story isn't over, Rivers—our story is not over." I touch his cheek and he turns his face into it.
He nods, swallowing as he looks down. "I know."
"I love you," I whisper, my voice trembling with the depth of my feelings for him.
Smiling sweetly, he wraps his arms around me as the train picks up speed. "I know that too."
WE FIND A PARK NEAR the hotel we're staying at in Memphis. It's small and near a residential part of the city, so it actually doesn't seem that different from where we live. A few swings sway in the distance from the gentle breeze that skims along my skin as well. Although the ride was interesting, it was long and I am glad to be on solid ground. We plan on doing sightseeing tomorrow, but tonight is for relaxing. Sitting in the dewy grass, we recline on our elbows and take in the clash of millions of points of light illuminating the dark.
"Most stars in the Milky Way live for fifty billion years."
Rivers looks at me. "Oh yeah? That's a seriously long time. What determines how long a star will live?"
"The bigger the star, the quicker it dies," I supply, and then go quiet.
"That's not exactly uplifting," he tells me. "What about the sun? Isn't that the biggest star? Your theory doesn't make sense."
"It isn't my theory. I read it once. And I don't know why the sun continues to live when it's the biggest star and the smaller stars don't."
"Maybe it isn't as old. It could be a really young star."
"Or it isn't the biggest star. Regardless, one day it will die too." I don't know why this upsets me so much, but it does. It isn't like I will be around for it. I guess because something so beautiful, so infinite, should not have a time limit on it. Like life. Why can't it just go on forever?
"But you know what? Think of that lifetime, Del. It's...phenomenal. It goes on and on for such a long time before it ends. Right?"
Smiling, I nod. He always knows what I need to hear. I am at peace with my time here. I cannot say that I am okay with it, because I am not, and I never will be, but there is no point in fighting a future that will come regardless of whether I am accepting of it or choosing to deny it. I don't think about how much time I have anymore. I don't wonder. I fall asleep each night thankful to be in Rivers' arms, thankful that I have one more night on this earth. I wake up each morning with a smile on my face because I get one more day.
After a while, he says, "I suppose you read all of this on the internet? What was your source? Facebook?"
I scowl and he laughs. "No." I did read it online, but not on Facebook. I believe it was Wikipedia.
"You crack me up."
"Ah, my life is complete now."
He reaches over and plays with a lock of my hair. "Mine too. Strange."
I have found, that you can't tiptoe through life, scared of what will or won't happen because of how you choose to live. You have to run at it as fast as you can, without fear, without even pausing to think about what you're doing. If you pause, you fall. This is my advice: Keep running.
"I can see our life, what it would be like, if we got the chance to grow old together. I already know our story, beginning to end," he says quietly.
I turn my head to find his eyes on me. He puts his hand on mine and interlocks our fingers. "What would it be?" I ask him.
Facing forward, he says, "We would finish college—"
"What are we going for?"
"Well, we'd finish the basic stuff and then go on to what we really want to do. I'd fly planes and you'd decorate the insides of homes. In fact, you'd become fairly well-known with your unusual design sense. I'd be your trophy husband."
"Ooooh, I like that. I'd get to dress you up like a doll and parade you around. You could be my visual piece of meat."
"I think you're enjoying the thought of that a little too much. Can I continue?"
I smile, closing my eyes. "Continue."
He plays with a lock of my hair, warmth spreading through my limbs as my body sinks farther into the cool ground. "We'd get married. You'd pick the colors—"
"Pink and black," I supply.
"Pink and black. We'd have one boy and one girl. The boy would have your golden eyes and carefree manner, the girl would be into all things pink and frilly."
"Neil and...Willow." For my brother, and the tree that cries for him—and for all of us that must leave before we are ready to.
His hand pauses. "I like those names."
"Me too," I whisper, turning my face into his hand and kissing the palm.
"We'd have family movie night, family game night, take them camping and to ballgames and—"
"Don't forget coloring and drawing...crafts."
"How could I forget those?" he gently mocks.
"We'd grow old and decrepit together and sit out on our porch at night."
"I'd yell at kids to get off the lawn."
I softly laugh, sitting up. I gaze down at him, the shadows formed on his face from a nearby streetlamp heightening the curve of his full mouth, the sharpness of his cheekbones, and evening out the squareness of his jaw. My heart beats with tenderness and it trickles through my veins to fill me with peace. "We'd live with so much joy in our lives that when our time came to go, we would smile instead of cry." Like I will.
Rivers scoots behind me and wraps his arms around me. "I like that version. That's our life. Agree?"
"Agree." And maybe in some alternate world, it would be. I inhale deeply, wishing I could bottle up this moment right now and wrap it around us so that it never went away. And then I realize, it never does. It won't. This is us, our time, and what we have will never die, not as long as one of us remembers.
He begins slowly, "I think, someway, somehow, we will meet again. I don't know how—I don't know when. But I feel it, here, in my heart." He touches a hand to the spot above my beating heart and the tempo of it picks up. "This is not our end. There is no end for us."
This might be our story, but this is more his story than mine. It will continue on as his as well—I am merely a character that has a substantial, but small role in the book. The rest is his. All of this, everything I have done this summer, has been for him. In a way, I exchanged my life for his.
I chose him.
We watch the stars as they flicker on with an invisible switch, neither speaking for a long moment. Then he nuzzles the side of my neck with his nose, whispering into my ear, “I still choose you.”
I smile, a star blinking out from the sky as I watch. That one just went home. My smile deepens.
“I will always choose you,” I say back.