Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GAbrIEL
Three days of living in our cottage.
Three days of a new life surrounded by boxes.
And three days of heavy rain.
I pulled into our driveway, the downpour giving my windscreen wipers a workout. Killing the engine, I sat in the vehicle for a moment, regarding the building.
Light shone in the windows in the darkness of late afternoon. I noticed Aki’s shadow moving and dancing.
What was he doing? Having a little boogie? He loved to boogie, especially when baking.
Wake up now and see him boogie across the years to come.
I reached over for the bouquet of yellow roses beside me, a finger snagging on a thorn.
Come back.
Don’t go.
Blood beaded on the pad of my left ring finger.
Ring.
There is a ring there.
“One day I’d like there to be,” I said, sucking on the blood.
There is a ring there.
I picked up the roses.
Rush, rush, rush. It was like I was moving in fast-forward, zipping through the rain, hurrying inside to the warmth of our sanctuary. Welcomed by the smell of a baking fruit cake. Simnel cake to be precise, since Easter was approaching.
Delicious.
Always delicious.
He looks at me with an intensity like no other.
“Hey, you!” Aki cried, spinning on the spot to the music.
A Britney Spears number. I forgot the name of the song, too focused on him in his cute pink jeans and white jumper with blue cupcake on it.
He’d bought it for more color. Said he lacked color, needed color, so why the bloody hell not?
“What are those?” he asked, skipping over to kiss me.
Despite all the color, he’d been pretty down lately. The rawness of his grief was taking its toll, and the miserable weather not helping.
“For you,” I answered, handing him the flowers.
He gave me a beaming grin, joy radiated off him in giddy waves. “Me?” He took them, smelling them. “That’s so sweet. Why?”
“Why not?”
He burst into tears.
“Aki?” I didn’t mean to make him cry.
“I… I… Bollocks.” He sniffled. “Ignore me.”
“Never.” I caught those tears, holding him, protecting him.
“I just… I just. Man, I’m a fucking state.”
“You’re beautiful.”
A giggle. “Stop it.”
“You are, Aki. You are.”
Yellow roses. The first of many flowers. I tried to always bring him something floral. Pretty for pretty, to see him smile. His passion might be with baking, but he also enjoyed flowers.
“Because they come from you,” I heard him say.
Come back.
Don’t go.
Come back from where? Happiness? What could be better than being here with him, forever locked in bliss.
This already happened.
“What?”
Aki twirled around the living room with his roses, laughing, singing along to the Britney Spears song.
This already happened.
Yes, happened before. Years ago.
“We’ve lived here for ___ years now.”
A missing number. What? Why was it missing?
The rain battered the windows, the temperature dropping. Shadows melted into the walls, consuming the cottage. Aki danced too close to them, parts of him being swallowed.
Taken away.
Gone.
Out of reach.
He doesn’t need to be.
A hole opened up in the floor made of rippling shadows, almost like oil. Bubbles formed and popped, beckoning me to take a dive.
No. Why would I do that? Going in there meant I wouldn’t be here with him.
“I’m staying,” I said.
The hole shrank slightly.
The darkness in the walls wrapped itself around Aki’s waist like a morbid lover. He didn’t notice, dancing and singing.
Why would I want to leave him here?
My ring finger itched. I held it up, a flicker of a white-gold band, a glimpse into the future.
Christmas time. Me on one knee. Proposing.
“Will you do me the honor of being my husband?”
It’d already happened. The ring was already on my finger, and his too.
The hole shrank again.
We were engaged.
I shivered from a bitter chill, rubbing at my biceps. “What is this?”
More darkness consumed Aki, claiming his face.
Gone.
He is gone.
All will be gone.
“If I don’t…” I swallowed a cruel ball of anxiety. “If I don’t jump into those shadows, then it’s…goodbye.”
That had to be it. Make a sacrifice for him. Do this and make things right.
My lips tingled from his kiss. But he wasn’t close enough to kiss, too far away.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Let your heart be full of him. Let it beat.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“G…”
The shadows took him away.
“Please…”
“Aki?”
The hole shrank again.
Almost time.
“Don’t leave me.”
I turned on the spot, the walls thick with darkness closing in, coming for me. Ready to take me away from him. End it. Start the next part of my existence without him.
“Not without him.”
“Don’t leave me.”
My eyes fell onto the shrinking hole. Within seconds, it would be gone and the walls would have me. I felt the pull of the next stage, the whispers from the other side.
“I’m not going.”
There were too many days ahead of me in need of coloring with yellow roses and other flowers. I wanted to hand him bouquets in the land of the living, not mourn him in the afterlife, waiting to see his face again.
Yes. Yellow roses. I wanted to give him yellow roses again. After that first time, they were always red or pink or some other flower, never yellow.
I jumped into the hole, opening my eyes to a kiss.