John, Peter and Rose

Chapter Eighteen

John tried to take a deep breath and concentrate on Rose. He tried to focus his gaze on the sparks in her eyes from the fireworks or her beautiful smile. He tried to start counting all her beauty marks in order to distract himself but no matter how much he tried to look at her Isaac's lifeless body just kept on flashing in front of his eyes. Suddenly, Rose became nothing but a blurry figure. Rose wasn't in front of him anymore but instead a blur of colours. Suddenly, he felt tears sliding down his cheeks, his hands started shaking uncontrollably and his heart started beating uncontrollably fast. He started feeling a bit dizzy, and he just kept trying to take a deep breath but nothing was coming in or out. He felt himself suffocating. He felt completely lost and scared. He had no idea what was happening to him. He thought that he was going to die. He managed to survive bullet after bullet shot at him. He managed to survive bombs, but the sound of fireworks was going to be the cause of his death. He tried to say something, anything to make someone aware of his situation but the flashing images of the lifeless body was stopping him from forming any words. He starts to look around hoping that someone will see his look of distress but every face he looked at appeared as Isaac's so he closed his eyes. But that obviously didn't stop the images. Nothing could stop this and so he shrank to the floor barely breathing praying for it all to just stop.

Meanwhile, Rose was completely unaware of John's condition. She was way too mesmerized by the scene in front of her. This was one of the happiest moments of her life. Finally, one of her dreams came true. She was excited to know that if she were to die tomorrow she would die knowing she at least had one goal crossed off of her bucket list. She didn't want to miss one moment of it she made sure to see every single firework and hear all of the noise created. The sight in front of her was so addicting she almost forgot a big part of her dream but, as the show was coming to an end, she finally remembered. She remembered sitting in her bed reading a romance novel and reading about the main characters finally kissing after hundreds of pages of waiting. She remembered how there would be fireworks in the background of the characters. She thought back about trying to imagine how that scene would look and feel but she couldn't truly come up with a picture in her head when she's never seen fireworks or been in love with a boy. Now she can imagine it all. The fireworks, the kiss, the love. This was the perfect opportunity to finally bring that scene to life. So, she turned to her left to kiss John but he wasn't there. The waitress became immensely confused. Where could he be? Did he leave without telling her? Was he simply getting them drinks? But she didn't have to look hard as the sound of heavy breathing made her look to the ground. She was horrified to see John on the floor struggling to breath and not being aware of anything around him.

John, what's wrong? Are you ok?

That's when it finally clicked for Rose. How could she of been so stupid? How could she of been so selfish? He's told her about how he went to war. He's told her about how he's seen horrible things that he doesn't even want to tell her about in order not to scare her. She should've known better than to think that he just came home completely fine. There's no way that you're completely fine after seeing all of that and she was too caught up in her own dreams to realize the obvious. Fireworks sound exactly like gunshots if anything were to bring him back to war it would be that. To make it all worst she was just standing there marvelling in happiness while he was breaking down and she didn't even notice. She felt like she failed miserably as a girlfriend.

She took John's hand and put it on her chest and started taking slow long breaths.

John, please open your eyes.

Rose saw John slowly opening his eyes not sure of what was happening.

Count with me. One, two, three

Rose kept on breathing in and out while counting every single breath they took. She could see him slowly being brought back to reality and after ten breaths he started counting with her. After a few moments that felt like a life time his breath had mostly come back to normal.

Thank you.

Hey, you don't need to thank me. I'm here to help you every time that something goes wrong. You know you can talk to me about anything right?

Yeah I just..... I'm not quit ready yet.

That's understandable just promise me you'll come to me the second that you are.

I promise. I'm sorry.

For what.

Ruining our date. We were having so much fun and I just had to ruin it.

You didn't ruin anything. You can't control this. And plus the night isn't over yet. Let's just forget about this and enjoy it.

Rose helped John up to his feet and they headed towards the only thing that they haven't done at the festival yet, the ferris wheel. This might be a classic, a ride that everyone has done a billion times before but it was a perfect ending to a great night. It's quiet, simple and romantic and of course they took the opportunity to recreate another classic romance scene. Once they got to the top of the ferris wheel they kissed. They kissed far away from all people and distractions. Where the sound didn't completely reach them. They kissed with no sound but the distant chatter and music from the ground and with nothing surrounding them but the moon and stars.