Chapter 10 Ricky
Ididn’t think there was anything left of my heart to break any more than it already has, but listening to the love of my life’s broken sobs of despair only serve to shatter it further.
And when I hear her own crack into a thousand pieces in front of me, it destroys me in ways I thought were unreachable.
It’s never happened like this before.
She’s never been this broken.
Usually, when she finds out the history between us, Heather is full of anger and confusion towards me, or the emotion I hate the most…
disbelief. Watching Heather run from me as quickly as she can, breaks me into a million pieces—only bringing along the swiftness of her death much quicker.
Thus, instigating the agony of my loss all over again.
The memories of her dying in my arms as I cradle her broken body against me are some I’ll never be free of.
No matter how many times I’ve gone through this, it always ends the same way… without her.
But maybe this time will be different, and I’ll be able to hold onto her for just a little bit longer, keeping her with me so I don’t have to wake up without her ever again.
During the early stages of reliving her death day after day, when it all became too much for me to handle, I tried killing myself multiple times, just to be with her.
Just so I didn’t have to wake up and relive every miserable day without her…
but nothing changed. Each time I took my final breath, I woke up the next day—or the same day she died—every single time.
Everything remained the same.
And the more each monotonous day passed, the more I became a shell of my former self.
I wasn’t happy anymore. I could barely stomach eating or drinking.
All that mattered was trying to find a way to bring her back to me.
To hold her in my arms once more. To kiss her, to make love to her, to show her she was the only important thing in my life.
But none of it mattered.
Therefore, I didn’t matter.
Then one day… it all changed.
Heather’s head drops back against my shoulder, her body quivering with melancholy as she continues to sob in my arms. I know there’s nothing I can do to supress the shock and confusion she’s feeling right now, but more than anything I wish there was.
I wish she was the one alive right now, not me.
God, I’ve prayed daily since the moment I lost her that I could change something, anything, but I can’t.
“Shh, you’re okay.” I soothe her as best as I can, gently tapping my hand just above her heart, rocking us back and forth.
“Just breathe for me, Princess.” When my voice cracks on the final word, rather than continuing to talk, I simply press my lips against her temple lovingly, tasting the salt of her tears as she weeps.
We sit in this position for what feels like hours—but I know it’s only minutes, seconds—until her rapid heartbeat eventually begins to subside.
But still, she doesn’t move. Only shifting momentarily for more comfort within my arms, or to get closer to me.
And with every second that passes, I keep the memory of this moment sewn into the very epitheliums of my body.
“How long?” She finally speaks, her voice so quiet I barely hear it at first.
“Baby—”
“Please, Ricky, just tell me.”
I release a heavy sigh—because I know I have to show her—I lift my right arm from around her waist and ruche up the black material of my Henley, displaying for her the multitude of tiny black lines inked onto my skin.
“Two-hundred days, give or take a few. I might have miscounted, but… let’s go with an even number.
” She pulls back a cracked sob, swallowing it back as she delicately runs her fingers over the tally marks on my inner forearm.
“They’re the only thing that stayed. After the fifth day…
I think, I decided to start keeping count.
And every day I woke up, the lines remained. Nothing else except that.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t think—”
She turns her head to face me. “Please, I need to know.”
“Do you remember anything at all about that night?” I question, but all she does is shake her head.
“I think… I remember a bright light, and then… nothing. Just… emptiness.”
When I swallow, it feels like razorblades slicing the inside of my throat, cutting away at my skin, urging me to stay quiet. After having to relive this day two-hundred times, you’d think I’d be used to the story by now… but it never gets easier.
No matter how many times I’ve been through it, nothing changes for me. It’s like Groundhog day. The same monotonous words spoken by people around me as I go about my morning ritual, trying to get her to remember me in any way I could. All the same actions, and incident. There’s no variation at all.
“Do you remember how we first met?”
She releases a sad, breathless giggle. “Outside the math building.”
I smile; happy she at least recalls that. “You were trying so frantically to get away from it and play hooky that you almost tripped over your own feet.” I chuckle softly. “I knew then I was infatuated with you.” I sigh.
“Really?” she asks, angling her body slightly for a better look.
“Really, really.” I smile, looking down at her, hoping to God she can see all the love I have for her within my eyes.
“You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on.
” I watch her cheeks begin to pinken ever so slightly.
“Your laugh, even the way strawberry Twizzlers made you smile like they were the most amazing thing in the world to you.”
“They are,” she cuts me off, a smirk playing on her lips.
“The night I lost you, we had already been together six months,” I start. “I was busy with art class, trying to complete this sculpture before the end of the day.” I chuckle.
“I remember that. It was for your final exam, and uh—” She thinks for a second before answering. “It was me, no… my hands,” she corrects herself. “You told me every day if I was the only—”
I lift both her hands in mine, twirling our fingers together. “Woman to ever touch me again—”
“You would die a happy man.”
I nod, bringing one of her hands to my mouth. The moment her soft skin connects with my lips, my heart begins to race as it did the first time I met her.
The way it has every day since.
“I asked you to meet me at the party.” I clear my throat. “I was supposed to pick you up on my bike, but we agreed to you driving here. But—”
“My car wouldn’t start.” She frowns in thought, and I nod sadly. “So… I decided to walk.”
“I asked you not to, begged you to wait for me in fact, but you…” The backs of my eyes begin to burn with all the unshed tears I’ve held onto since a part of my soul died. The sensation of heat rising to the back of my nose as I fight the tears, hurts.
Up until this moment, I’ve never told her what happened…
not like this, anyway. I never had the chance to hold her in my arms and feel the calming beat of her heart against mine, or how her lungs expand to take in air.
I’ve only ever had to chase her, beg her, plead, and argue with her to let me explain.
I haven’t felt comfort from the love of my life in nearly a year.
“When you didn’t show up, I went out looking for you.
Everyone I knew was already at the party, and none of them seemed to know where you were.
Finding you by the side of the road two miles away from the Gamma Nu house is an image I’ll never get over.
When I woke up the next morning, I thought everything was a fever dream from too much alcohol or something, but it wasn’t.
You had no idea who I was. It was as though the last six months never existed.
All we had experienced together just… gone in the blink of an eye.
In that moment I knew I’d lost everything that mattered to me, and every time I relived that day, I had to try and remind you who I was.
It was as though I was living in a nightmare and no matter what I did to try and save you… I always ended up without you somehow.”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpers.
“No.” The word comes out forced but there’s no way I can have her thinking it’s her fault. “Look at me, Heather.” I release her hands and turn her entire body to face me, moving her legs to straddle me. “None of this is your fault.”
Tears build at her lower lash line, sadness written all over her face. “But if I’d just—” Her chin wobbles as she fails to finish her words.
“Baby, stop. Please.” I press my forehead against hers, trying my best to comfort her the only way I know how.
“Don’t take the blame for something you didn’t cause.
The fault lies merely on the people who took you from me.
” I choke back a sob of my own. “Who stole what time we had together. However long it was going to be.”
“That’s why we’re here tonight, isn’t it?” Heather sniffles, wiping her nose on the cuff of her sweater. “Patrick, he was part of it… wasn’t he?”
My hands cup either side of her face as more tears fall over her long black eyelashes, and I clear them quickly from the apples of her cheeks with the pads of each thumb.
“I don’t know why I keep reliving the same day.
I don’t know if it’s because when I lost you that night, I died right there with you on the side of the road.
But if I had to, I’d live every moment of torture, every crack that cuts through me, every repeated day, if it meant all of it was spent loving you.
” I kiss each of her cheeks one by one. “I knew you were mine the moment I saw you walk across the street the first day I moved here. I claimed every inch of you then, and that’s never going to change. Not in death. Not ever.”
Her body trembles as she nods in understanding. As more tears fall down her cheeks, my own follow suit like little drops of pain tracking the lines of my face and reminding me of the suffering losing her has caused me.
I brush my hands over her face, pushing back her soft blonde hair. “These eyes…” My voice quivers as more tears begin to blur my vision. “Fuck, baby, I’ve missed your beautiful eyes.”