Chapter 7
Nikki
"Hey, baby,"
The voice is soft and sweet, gentle and somehow musical. It's also warm... so much warmer than anything I can remember.
I'm comfortable for the first time in a long time, wrapped in a gauzy sort of peace that makes me never want to move for fear of losing it. But that voice isn't stopping, and when I think I've forgotten it's there, it speaks again.
"Come on, Nikki. Let me see those eyes."
Nikki.
Is that me?
I'm not so sure, at the moment. I'm not so sure I'm anything at all, at the moment. I'm weightless, buoyant... I could be floating.
"Come home to me, baby. It's time."
I don't know how I know that name, but I do. I know it in a place that is intrinsic— my soul recognizes it.
Everything here is white— not the starched, sterile and cold white of a hospital or sanitarium, but the gauzy, fluffy white of clouds and daylight breaking through them. But I don't see anyone.
"Hello?"
My voice sounds weird and echoey as I look around the vast, unending emptiness, searching for anything I recognize.
"Come on, baby. I've missed you."
The voice from nowhere teases at the edges of my being, a seduction of sorts. I don't recognize it, but I want to listen to it... to do what it says. I just don't know how.
"Where are you?"
He appears all at once, but it doesn't startle me.
One moment I am alone in this prison of light and clouds, and the next, he's there standing before me.
.. a man with the softest shade of brown hair and full lips tipped into a small smile.
I don't flinch or move away from him when he reaches a hand between us and rests it on my cheek, his thumb stroking over the apple of it as he stares at me, his eyes searching mine for something.
I don't know what it is, but he's easily the most beautiful man I've ever seen, so I stare back until memories slip through me of falling asleep with my head on his chest, twirling under his arm, kissing his lips, tasting him with my tongue.
"Noah?"
"There's my girl." His lips spread into a soft smile, but I see the pride in his eyes, the joy, the sorrow. And it all hits me like the weight of a thousand bricks falling on me, crushing the breath from my chest, eking the life out of me.
"How?" It's the only word I can manage, the only thing that can slip off of my tongue before a sob escapes me... a sob that I don't even know the purpose of. Is it sorrow? Is it joy?
"My sweet girl." He shakes his head softly before pressing his forehead to mine, soaking me in as I soak him in, my mind reeling with the possibilities and implications and the nagging question of how this is possible.
I remember that he died. I know that's true.
Am I dreaming?
"Life is just a dream." I pull away to see him better, to ask what he means, but he just nods. "I know. I know what you're thinking. We've been connected through life and death. Our souls are twined in every iteration they exist in."
I don't know what that means, but I don't care.
He's here. It's the greatest Christmas gift I could have asked for.
But I don't know where here is.
"What's going on?"
"We're in the after." He says, so simply that it may as well have been him telling me his name. When I blink at him, his lips turn to a sad smile again. "After life. You died, and your spirit came here..."
My spirit?
I blink again, and everything shifts. "I came... here?"
We're standing in the church, which is lit by the glow of the Christmas lights on the large tree in the lobby. The heavy double doors are open, letting the light filter in.
He doesn't say anything, and when I look at him again, he tips his shoulder in a shrug. "I think it's a waiting room. I've been waiting for you." He swipes a strand of hair from my face, and I watch the light slip over his fingers. They look so translucent.
"Are we ghosts?"
"Maybe." He shrugs. "Though I prefer to think of it as angels."
"Angels..." I agree, searching the room for any sign of what's going on.
He said I'm dead, but I don't understand.
Why would I be dead? Why wouldn't I remember that?
"No. We can't be angels." I step away from him, gliding even though I should have tripped on the step that I didn't lift my leg to climb. "You killed yourself..."
"I would never have left you." He says, his voice firm even in its delicateness. "I didn't choose that, and I didn't leave. I've been right here, waiting. I wish it had taken longer, though. You shouldn't be here."
I shouldn't be here.
Why am I?
"What happened?"
"The same thing that happened to me." His fingers trace my jaw, his eyes enamored. "We trusted the wrong person. Nick was no friend to either of us."
Nick.
The world seems to shake at the mention of his name; everything trembles like we're inside a jar being shaken for the amusement of a petulant child. I'd think there was an earthquake hitting if that made any sense.
His name is like a bad omen, sending a jolt of something through me, a sensation I'm not sure I can identify. It's different from anything I've felt since waking up here.
"Nick." His name feels like ash on my tongue... a poison that spreads to my veins, filling my bloodstream with something acrid and dark... something that makes the room harshen and dim, the shadows growing more severe, the air colder. "He killed you."
Noah nods.
"And me?"
This time, he doesn't nod. He just stares at me with all that sorrow, like he doesn't know what to do to fix it.
"Tell me what happened." I demand.
He doesn't have to tell me, though. It comes flooding back in a tidal wave that threatens to consume me, dragging me out to sea and battering me against the rocks like a ship in a storm.
Pain and fear and anger and betrayal and shock and horror and defeat and grief.
It's a staggering weight to bear, one that weighs on me, my knees buckling a moment before I drop to them.
He drugged me. He planned it.
Why? Was it just a game for him?
I remember him telling me it was. I remember him saying it would be just like when we were young...
hiding in the dark from our moms with his hand on my mouth telling me he loved me, telling me he was my husband, that mommies and daddies kissed with their tongues, his small hands creeping beneath fabric...
I remember so much I didn't even realize ever happened, and it fucking hurts.
My entire existence is fucking shattered, and I'm staring at the man I love, and he can't do anything to help me because I'm fucking dead.
Isn't death supposed to be easy? That's what people argue... that it gives you an end to the pain and suffering? That you'll be at peace? That better things await?
If I'm dead, then I've been betrayed more than I ever realized was possible, because this is not peace. There's nothing delicate or gentle here... not now that the cruel reality of the life I lost is playing out so obviously like a film I don't want to watch.
"It's okay." Noah croons, so softly that I think he might even believe it. "We're done with the hurt. We can move on now, together."
"Move on?"
The sound of laughter rattles the walls. The stained glass seems to shake in its frame as the sound builds in the church, something unhinged and baseless... something volatile. I don’t even know when we got back to the church, but it’s materialized around us like a prison.
"Move on?" I repeat.
No. I don't know what that even means. But I know that what happened to us isn't something you just 'move on' from.
I don't care if I'm dead... I'm not going to just act like I forgive Nick for this.
I'm not going to go quietly into the void or the afterlife, heaven or hell, or whatever really comes next.
"I've been waiting here because I wasn't ready. But you're here now."
I appraise him… every lash, every hair on his head, every last pale freckle dotting his cheekbones. I love everything about him. I did before I died, and I think I still do. But I'm not ready.
"No." I shake my head. "I can't."
"You can't go back. It won't make you real.
Trust me, I tried. I spent so much time trying to get you to see me, to tell you I would never leave you, to tell you to never doubt that I loved you.
.. I watched you cry yourself to sleep, I held you every night.
I was with you nearly every minute of every day, but still you didn't see me because we're somewhere that is separate from them. .. somewhere that they can't see us."
His confession is vulnerable enough that it subdues the pain, buries it all for just long enough for me to tilt my head.
"What do you mean, you held me?"
"I don't suppose you could feel it, but I needed you. I was holding on to you as tight as you were to me... terrified that if I went wherever comes next, I'd never see you again."
I breathe him in, suddenly overwhelmed by the soft light in his brown eyes, the warmth of him near me, the love that's strong enough to drown out all the hurt.
"I missed you."
He doesn't tell me he missed me again. He doesn't have to. I can see his soul— or maybe he is his soul just manifesting in the shape I was familiar with him— and I can see his truth.
All the doubts and worries, all the second guessing and back and forth and agonizing, all the nasty little thoughts that tried to slip in between the cracks as I felt myself shattering. It was all in my head, and none of that was real.
But what we had was.
I watch his lips for a moment before they fall on mine, and then I'm consumed.
I never stopped to wonder what souls are made of.
I trusted in a church, in an institution full of corrupt men, in a world dominated by corrupt men.
I trusted on blind faith that our souls were knit by something greater than us.
Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. I'm dead, so I would think the answers would come to me, that the truth would be evident.
But suddenly, none of that matters. Whatever our souls are made of, it's a magical thing.
.. a fabric that can bend without breaking.
I have a body, but I don't know if it's my body... I think I left that behind somewhere. I'm just mist and light now, nothing corporeal, nothing tangible... and yet, he's able to kiss me.
It's not just a kiss, though. It's a reunion, the acceptance of everything that has happened as bringing us to this point, bringing us back together.
And I lose myself in it.