Suicidal

The precipice

Loving someone and being in love with someone are two completely different things when it comes down to the end. I figured this out in the hardest way possible. 

"Honey, can you please come out here?" Mom pokes her head into my room and murmurs weakly, a startlingly scared look on her face. 

"What is it?" I sit up and leave my textbook on my bed, following her out to the dining room when she motioned to go with her. Two policemen stand in my house, hands on their hips and unsure looks about their faces. Immediately my heart drops into my stomach and my first thought is 'where is Avery?' 

"Son, where were you this evenin' from 4 to 8?" One of them questions me. 

"I uh...I don't know," I panic- I was with Martie for most of that time! Had Brody found out? Wait, why would they be here if he had...?  "I hung out with some friends," I answer, deciding I'm just thinking too much, but the worry is gnawing at me. "What's this about?" I ask them. They're silent for three seconds, an eternity too long. More panic. "Where's Avery?!" I shout, tears filling my eyes as I look to my mother for reassurance, only finding sadness there. 

"Now boy you need to calm down," one of them, the one with the thick red mustache, steps forward and places his hand on my shoulder. I swat him off and back away from the three of them, once again demanding to know the whereabouts of my brother. 

"Sam?"  The screen door slams against the wooden doorframe as Avery enters the kitchen, suddenly confused at the sight of the officers. Relief floods me. Momentarily. "Were you just yelling about me...?" He turns to Mom and whispers, "what happened...?" She simply reaches her arm around his shoulder and hugs him close, a few tears slipping from her eyes. 

I glance over the men once more, the confused and worried look on my face convincing them that I wasn't lying about where I was. 

"It's your friend, Martha Beyling."

The moment I received the news that she was missing there was no doubt in my mind that she was the love of my life. I'd already known and accepted the fact that I was in love with her, and that I wanted nothing more than to be with her. When I lost her I lost a part of myself as well, a part of myself that I didn't even know she possessed. I feel unwhole. Incomplete.  

I felt alone, and everything was way too quiet. It was like the voices in my head stopped all talking at once; my conscience, my memories, the sound of her laugh, the little devil in the back of my mind whispering 'murder' even shut up after the first few days. I didn't have suspicions or thoughts about where Martie could be or what she might be going through- because it was like my connection to her had been severed when she disappeared. I no longer felt her around me. 

What I do feel is her absence, and it is the most brutal pain I've ever experienced. It's as if I can't breathe, the tears won't stop coming and my heart pounds harder and harder still. I remember her everywhere. 

I hear her voice in every song, I see her face in every woman, I smell her hair in the wind, and I miss her terribly here,  remembering her wrapped up in my arms as we lay together, barricaded from the outside world by a thick mass of blankets and kisses. 

She runs her fingers down the length of my spine, sending violent trembles throughout my body. Giggling, she tangles her fingers in my hair and kisses my neck. I sigh and lean my head back to allow her easy access, relishing in the familiar scent of her skin as she tenderly brushes herself against me, despite how truly terrified I was that this was happening. So...suddenly. We had only been having a normal conversation two minutes ago. But who knows if I'll ever get this chance again, so I give in to it. 

"You tease," I whisper, short of breath as I feel my heart-rate increase, "I can't take it when you touch me like that." She sighs against my neck and the sensation makes the hair on my arms stand up on end. Her tongue pokes out to greet the skin beneath my ear and I can tell she's pleased with my reaction as I turn quickly and grasp her in my arms, unable to resist the urge to hold her any longer. She needs to be closer with me or I won't be able to breathe. I'll suffocate without her touch.  

"I'm not a tease if I eventually give in." I feel myself unraveling in her arms, weak to the touch.

"What?" I wonder out loud, shocked at her statement. My heart drops into my stomach. We had never given into these urges in such a way before, never had we let ourselves fall victim to such a passionate haste. 

She takes my face in her hands and kisses me with such a fierce desire that I'm reassured it isn't just me, I'm not the only one feeling this. It felt like we were two halves of the same whole coming together in a beautiful harmony. We lose ourselves in each other.

I've never felt a naked woman before, nor had I never seen one so close. It's far more than I ever imagined it'd be, I feel as though my heart will pound out of my chest. My best friend hovering above me in the haze of desire and comfort, looking down at me with those beautiful green eyes, those eyes that are asking me a very dark question. A question we both know the answer to. 

Slowly, so slowly, our puzzle pieces complete the picture we've been trying to decipher our whole lives together. This feels so right. Together we are who we're meant to be. Warmth envelopes us as we're bathed in honey like euphoria. 

"You are so incredible," I whisper in her ear, wanting her to know how much I adored her. How badly I've wanted this. 

I fall into the kiss as I move gently with her, completely overwhelmed with every sensation. I hold onto her and bury myself to her hilt, soaking up her cries because they were mine to soak up, never allowing her lips to be  taken away. 

"Sam," she whispers against me. The sound of my name, said with such abandon, triggers something inside me, sending the butterflies in my stomach on a rampage. They bat their wings against the inside of my ribcage, threatening to break out. 

It felt too good, the closeness of her body and the sound of her voice so delicately spurring me on. Her love was so overwhelming I felt as if my heart would burst with joy. 

"Sam, I love you," she tells me when we pull apart for air, desperate kisses edging us closer to release. 

Closer than I thought, because as soon as the words register in my mind I'm falling apart. I spill myself inside her and she clutches me, whimpering my name as she falls over her same edge. Our bodies move together in an ageless dance of fire and rain, captured beautifully by our love. We're doused in ecstasy wrapped up in each other. "I love you too."

As we lie there a few minutes later we say nothing. Nothing but the tips of our fingers touching as our damp and tired bodies recover from our effort. We don't have to say anything to bask in the glow of what we'd done.

I go back to that moment a lot, the first and only time I ever told her I loved her. We had reached the precipice of the choice we were making, and she disappears that same night. 

I would have thought that loving someone that much would give you at least an uneasy feeling in your gut when something happens to them. But for me it was as if her leaving had taken away one of my senses. All the air was dissipating from the space around me, and I was forgetting how to breathe.