50. Devina
Doomsday - Lizzy McAlpine
Four weeks have come and gone. Four weeks since I faced death. Again. And in the moment when I could have given in, I fought. I fought to stay here. I fought because of the people around me. I fought to stay with him. I fought because the thought of another person deciding when I die was devastating enough to make me crazy. So I fought.
But every day my body grows weaker. The bags under my eyes, darker. The nausea is the worst part. I’m so hungry.
Four days ago I had my first seizure.
My vision hasn’t been the same since.
I’m slowly fading.
Withering.
I know I can no longer be the one to complete my mission. Not because my body has betrayed me. But because when you lose someone you love, they take a piece of you with them. I can’t do that to Ryder. Killing his father would be killing a piece of him.
I haven’t failed. I won. I have Ryder, which is more than I could have ever hoped for. I was able to give him all of me. Every jagged, scratched, dented, broken piece of me. And he took it all. He begged for it.
So, I chose this.
I choose this.
One day, very soon, there will be no more choices to make.
The sun is beaming in through the sheer curtains in our room. I can feel it before I open my eyes to see it. Ryder sits at my side, brushing my hair out of my face. “So fucking pretty. My pretty girl.” He whispers.
I can only smile. My mind is thinking of the words. All of the words I want to say, but my mouth doesn’t always cooperate these days. It’s like the thought is being translated by telephone, the game you played in grade school. By the time the information gets to the last person, it’s only a skewed version of what it was originally supposed to be. But he doesn’t need to hear my words. He can feel them. He can feel me.
I feel weak.
I feel burdensome.
I feel like I’m ready. Ready to go.
I don’t hate myself anymore. Ryder’s love transformed me and for the first time, I truly don’t want to die. In another life, we would have had more time to be happy. We would have had children and we would have spent our days doing adventurous and mundane things. He would take me to Italy. We would have a nighttime routine for the kids. There would be first steps and first words. When we welcomed the coming years we would celebrate the last time we played pretend and the last first day of school. We would take vacations and make memories. When we were old we would look back at what had been with smiles and appreciation. But today, I can only look towards a future that would never be with longing.
As the thoughts float around me, and I mourn a life that would never be, I can’t help but be comforted by the idea that whether we had fifty years or only five minutes… there would never be enough time to love Ryder. But a love like ours stretches beyond time itself.
I imagine death approaching, reaching her hand out to me. There was a time when I would have gone willingly without regret. I yearned to be taken to the other side. But to be in a world where I cannot feel his fingertips caress me or hear his voice whisper my name feels hellish.
I drift back to sleep, feeling the warmth of his body against mine. I want him to always remember me as his pretty girl.