12-Zach - Two Years Ago
(April twenty-sixth, twenty twenty-three)
Death is like the first inhale of spring after a long winter, crisp and new.
I curl my toes into the cool moss, and it soaks through my arches as it gives under my weight.
Silvery jade branches sway from the willow tree, towering beside the serpentine-shaped stream.
The stream’s gentle rhythm matches my breaths as its winds through the wildflower fields, crystal-clear water catching the gilded light like liquid glass.
I’ve been here before.
My knees shake. I’ve spent so long trying to move forward, trying to grasp a reality that keeps shifting under my feet. Work, bills, the endless grind of trying to stay afloat, it all feels like running in place. People are building futures, finding joy. I want that, too.
This is the only way I know how to reach it.
Everyone’s moving on in life, and I’m stuck at the accident, trying to get some sort of justice with the stupid lawsuit. But the monster who destroyed my life is out, living his.
Nicole should be celebrating her thirty-first birthday today.
But she’s dead because of me. At her funeral, Jeremy said Nicole wouldn’t have been in that accident if I hadn’t treated her like my personal taxi.
He apologized after, but it was true. So, I took the stupid test and got my driver’s license as soon as I healed.
She was a force—with a whole plan for her life. Plus, multiple backups. I’m a waste of a second chance. It should be her that survived, not me.
I tried my best, even threw myself into whatever work Neil gave me. That first anniversary sucked, but I gave myself another year to live. Seeing Jeremy engaged to someone else less than two years later, after nine years with Nicole, broke something in me. I couldn’t make it through another week.
What I did to myself comes back in flashes: the knife. Blood.
So much blood.
The apartment building’s fire alarm blaring as I lost consciousness, jagged steak knife still firm in my grasp. Blinding lights—then trailing down a long hall like tracks. I inspect my forearm’s smooth, unmarked skin, wondering if it’d been a dream.
Am I still alive?
The air here reeks of the moment a match flares to life. A frigid wisp inches up my back, my skin unusually exposed. Starchy, powder-blue material hangs from my naked body like an oversized apron.
“Ahem.”
I jolt upright, turning toward the willow tree. A man steps from behind the trunk one casual tip-toe at a time. My lungs constrict. Toffee-brown hair falls to his broad shoulders in messy beach waves. Sun-kissed mahogany eyes center a sculpted, youthful face.
“It is not yet over,” he murmurs, his accent lilting; a dialect shaped by centuries.
“I don’t understand,” I respond meekly, as if speaking after weeks of silence.
His aura wraps around me like an instant turn in weather.
It doesn’t glow; it exhales. He shines the color of evening sun.
A vibration hums under my skin with a frequency as familiar as my heartbeat.
It’s like a home I’ve never lived in, a story I’ve forgotten but whose emotional impact lingers like the last embrace of a loved one.
It’s a promise whispered across lifetimes.
A sorrowful recognition lures me toward him. He reaches out as I approach, rough fingertips brushing my cheek. The touch is feather-light and reverent, as if he’s afraid I’ll crumble beneath it. His forehead rests against mine, flooding my nose with cinnamon-honeyed musk.
Up close, he’s even more striking. There’s a tiny scar splitting his right brow, like the work of a single scratch. The slight hook of his nose cocks the narrow bridge to the right. A crooked, left-leaning smile draws my attention to the faint dimple in his chin.
“It is not the time for you to go adrift. I know you carry more than anyone should. I know the weight of it,” he murmurs, stroking my once-broken cheek again.
His touch sends a warm shiver down my spine.
“Though, my dearest, you swore an oath to find me in every life, and I shall see that you honor it. You owe this to yourself. To us.”
“I’m stuck,” I whisper, fresh tears gathering at the back of my throat, ready to spill over. “I don’t know how to keep going.”
“This life has tested you more than most. But it has not finished revealing all it holds for you still. There will be signs.” After tucking a frizzy curl behind my ear, his fingers wander, warm against my pebbled skin. “Find your way back to me.”
Calloused thumb pads brush away my tears. He peers down at my mouth. A tremor ripples through my spine—like I’ve wandered off a ledge I didn’t see coming.
Overcome with wanting, I throw my arms around his neck, fingers weaving into his silky waves. His breath hitches as our lips meet, tasting of woodsmoke and sap. We kiss desperately, like two halves attempting to fuse.
He lifts me, pressing my back against the willow’s trunk.
Bark scratches the exposed skin, the bites of pain only adding another contradictory layer to the experience.
The stream’s rushing melody rises as the willow whispers, a thousand murmurs of approval aligning our bodies into this precise angle.
I pull back, gasping for air in spite of wanting nothing but to inhale him.
A tall, slender figure stands before me, skin pale as moonlight.
His white-blond hair falls across his forehead; every shade of blue swirling into his eyes like stars of a galaxy.
He blinks and vanishes, and a pair of whiskey-brown irises stare at me again, as if he can’t decide which version I’m meant to see.
“I don’t understand,” I say breathlessly.
“You will,” the brunette stranger says, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
The ground dissolves beneath my feet as I fall out of the dream. I jolt upward, lungs seizing like I’ve been forced underwater.
A single piano note rings out. Then another and another. Each one blooms outward like ripples across a lake. It isn’t just music. It’s illuminated color. The notes shimmer silver, whirling around my spine. Tears spill down my cheeks. I weep with grief, longing, and wonder as the song fills me.
“Deep breath.” Someone touches my arm, grounding me to a sentient reality. “Let your body rest. You lost a lot of blood, hun.”
Coconut and shea butter cuts through the sterilized air as the nurse adjusts something at my bedside. Her scrubs remind me of that awful bubblegum amoxicillin I took as a kid. Black patches spot the pink material like a ladybug, but I can’t make out the images.
“What’s that music?” I ask, voice groggy as sleep lulls me back under.
Warm heaviness spreads through my veins. I sink back into the pillow like a bag of bricks. The melody softens, then blurs, before melting into mist.