Chapter 135
Damien
Play - Heaven Couldn’t Wait For You by Isaac Mather
If you go I’ll go with you
Seven years. I worked, I stayed with Milo, I did everything I could to keep going even if it didn’t feel like life anymore. When I see him, I see her. When I see the sky, I see her. When I see Blue, I remember her smile and how much she loved the most ordinary things in life.
Every weekend, I make a wish, sending it to whatever she is hiding now.
I convinced myself that seven years would be enough. Enough time to make peace with it and turn her into a memory instead of an open wound. Enough time to be able to pronounce her name once again without feeling something inside me reach for her.
I was wrong. I still am.
Because I carry the grief into meetings, into hotel rooms and every apartment I never bothered making a home. I carried it through every movie night, every birthday and every year I watched Milo become someone she never got to meet.
I carried it so well that people mistook it for healing.
I’m on the edge of the cliff and the lighter is in my hands. I haven’t used it since that night. And I can see it all over again. I remember calling her name, believing that if I reached her quickly enough, I could still change the shape of her broken heart.
I don’t know what I’m expecting to find. A ghost perhaps, or a grave. Anything proving that the world never stopped remembering her.
Open. Warm. Close. Cold.
Then I hear her laugh and I freeze. God, it’s been too long.
My whole body goes still.
She sits beside me for the first time in seven years. And all I can do is close my eyes.
“You came back,” she says.
That’s when I look at her. Alive, a sad smile painting her lips, soft blue eyes staring at me.
I forgot how much peace lived in just a small smile. Years of absence, undone in a heartbeat because of a laugh.
“You didn’t haunt my dreams enough,” I reply, mirroring her expression. “I missed your face.”
Her eyes drift to my face, analyzing my expression before she speaks again, “You look older.”
I almost smile. God I missed her so much I’m still hallucinating. “Seven years, Mireya.”
Her name. I finally said it again.
She tilts her head, looking at the lighter between my fingers, then back at me. “Seven years…”
Something in me gives up when I realize how wrong this is. “You’re not real.”
“I know.”
She looks exactly like she should. No blood staining her, no fear in those eyes, no goodbye. She looks real. She looks real but she’s not and it’s breaking me.
“How was life for seven years, Damien?” she asks as if the tenderness in the way she said my name didn’t kill me once more.
“You died,” I laugh softly. Is she crying? Or maybe it’s me. I don’t know, everything is blurry. My eyes fall back to the lighter, because I can’t bear looking at her again without wanting to tear myself apart. “I thought I remembered you perfectly. But I forgot how it felt to look at you.”
A soft hand landed next to my arm, so close I could grab it if I wanted to. “Was it bad?”
“It was long.”
“Tell me more, please,” she asks softly.
I tell her about him first because I know that’s what she would want to hear.
“He’s eighteen now,” I say and I can’t help the small smile that comes with it.
“He’s taller than I thought he’d be. He takes care of Blue, and does everything correctly.
He’s a good kid. And he never stops mentioning you at any small thing he does.
” She smiles and shakes her head, so I continue, “He drives now. I taught him.”
“Is he good?”
“He’s terrible,” I reply and that gets a laugh out of her. “But he’s better than he was two years ago.”
She shakes her head then leans a bit closer to the edge. “That’s not reassuring.”
I laugh softly, looking down at her hand, wanting to take it in mine, feel her, touch her, be with her. “I took him to his first football game after you were gone. I kept looking around like I expected you to be there.” Her smile fades and I continue, “I did everything I promised to you.”
Her fingers finally tighten around mine, and I breathe again. “I know…”
I look at her, and suddenly I can’t stop the lonely tear that falls down my cheek. Somewhere along the way, missing her had become part of breathing. “I thought about you all the time.”
“How often?”
“Every day,” I reply softly.
How can I tell her that even the silence inside me sounded like her, that I forgot the reason I was surviving for every time her face came back inside my mind.
A sad smile appears on her face when she says, “That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. I remember everything.” I breathe slowly then continue, “The way you used to look at me when you felt guilty of me loving you. The sound you made whenever you laughed too hard. The way you only fell asleep when I was driving.”
She steps closer, until her forehead rests against mine. I can feel her breathing as if it’s real, and it almost killed me. “I loved you,” she whispers. “I still love you. I never stopped.”
I close my eyes, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her close, then press my face into her hair. I want to breathe her in, even though some rational part of me knows there’s nothing here to breathe in. Nothing but memory and grief, and seven years of wanting something I could never have again.
“I missed you, it was killing me,” I whisper.
Her arms tighten around me as I pull back to look at her.
My hands still rest at her waist as though letting go would make the years of loneliness return all at once.
“I tried. I tried to keep living like you told me to. I worked until I couldn’t think.
I stayed busy. I took care of him. I did everything right. ”
She watches me quietly, a soft pearl sliding down her eyes.
“But everything tasted wrong,” I continued. “Every good thing felt like something I was supposed to tell you about afterwards.” I laugh and brush her jaw with my fingertip. “You took something with you when you left.”
She reaches toward my face, her sad eyes returning and I hate that even dead she’s not at peace. “What, Damien?”
“My soul, apparently.”
She gives me that sorrowful little smile I remember more than anything. “You’re still here.”
“I wish I wasn’t,” I murmured, before reaching into my pocket. My fingers find the paper and when I pull it out, the little star is bent at one corner, the fold softened from years of being carried around.
She looks at it, and then at me. “You still have that?”
I smile despite everything, and nod as she takes it carefully from my hand. For an instant, she turns it over between her fingers, studying it, the red stains that are slowly disappearing but never fully leaving.
“I never stopped making wishes for you,” I say, confused on what type of pain could make me think this is real.
“Why?”
“Because you, Mireya Vitelli, have been the most beautiful tragedy I had to go through.” A kiss on her mouth, quick and soft. “And I never stopped missing you. Not once.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and the ghost of a kiss brushes my mouth. She gives me a soft smile and stands. “I have to go, now.”
“No…”
She takes a step backward, and in a second I’m reaching out for her, fingers closing around hers.
I pull her gently back toward me, and she’s so close I can see the tiny details I had spent years trying to reconstruct from memory.
The scars, the sapphire fragments in her eyes, the loose rebellious strand of hair resting against her cheek.
I lift my hand, and tuck it gently behind her ear and smile.
“Seven years ago, you asked me if I’d miss you if you jumped,” I whisper as she watches me confused. “I told you, if you go, I’ll go with you.”
“Would you?” she asks, another tear falling down her face.
“I’d do anything for you,” I reply.
Another step back, and I tighten my arms around her.
This time I won't let go.
I tried to make a life after her, but I never managed to make one beyond her.
There’s no thought, no fear, no hesitation. I’ve spent seven years reaching for her, and I won’t spend another second watching her disappear alone again.
The world drops away beneath us as I pull nothingness against me, wrapping both arms around her as we face and bury my face in her hair. “I’m with you.”
I’m with you.
912321.