Violent Eulogy

Jouska

I wake up to the familiar smell beside me, but keep my eyes shut. I know he's awake, I can hear his breaths. I keep my eyes closed to enjoy every other sense more intensely. I take a deep breath and fill my nose with his scent, he smells like fresh coffee and spearmint. Clean, delicious, the cure to any headache. That's what he was to me, a cure to any pain.

He traces his finger on my arm: "What are you thinking about?"
I smile: "About how much I love you."

Sometimes it scares me how deeply dependent I am to him, It's like a small part of me believes the world would cease to exist without him. Like everything would just...stop.
Like he was the glue holding everything together.

I feel warm, happy and safe. But I shouldn't, there's this tiny snake swerving in my gut that taints everything, reminding me to be alert, to keep my distance, to keep my expectations low and my hopes buried.
And deep down I know it too, I can't be feeling happy, not for long at least.

How can a person be so in love that she would do anything for it, and at the same time tries not to do much so she wouldn't seem too needy?

Human malfunction.

"Listen." He whispers.

I listen closely, I can hear it now, it's the wind. The wind howling outside, through the branches... I hate windy nights. I feel tears running down, but I keep my eyes shut, I press them shut, as hard as I can, so hard that I start to see strange light blue figures dancing behind my eyelids. The wind is closer now, it's not outside anymore, it's in the room, with me, on the bed. I'm not safe anymore. I wrap my shaky arms around myself, to control my sobs.

He realizes the truth with a great shock: "You're scared of me. After everything, YOU'RE scared of me."
He scolds me, his voice a mix of anger and disbelief. He rolls swiftly and before I can move, throws himself on top of me, taking my face between his hands and shaking it violently: "Open your eyes! Open them!" and I obey.

His face is in front of me, in full details. Large dark eyes, weirdly soft black hair tucked behind his ears, tiny frown lines between his brows.

God, my memory is unfairly accurate. I remember how his lips used to part for a few millimeters when he was surprised, how he sucked the air in loudly, how wide his eyes used to get, I could count each and every one of his long eyelashes.

I raise my hand to caress the side of his face and let it stay there.
His tears drop down on my face, mixing with mine.

"You're not real." My rapid breaths barely let me get the words out.

It's too hard. The pain feels like my heart is being ripped off from my chest. Over and over and over again.

I clutch my chest to stop the pain, I'm shaking, barely breathing: "I'm...I'm...

I don't know what to say.

Am I sorry?

I don't know.

He places his palm on my chest and softly whispers: "It's okay."

I feel my breathing slowly return to normal, the wind has stopped and the light blue figures are gone. But he's still here, looking at me in pain.

And the bitter fact that I'll never be able to be near him again, stabs me.

I repeat, this time out of pure sadness and not fear: "You're not real."

I lick his tears off my lips. They're not salty, they're sweet, too sweet. Disgustingly sweet.

"No." He replies sadly.

Placing both his hands on my temples, he stares deep into my eyes: "Don't remember me as a bad memory Eva. Don't let me turn into a nightmare. Please. You owe me that much."

I want to break our eye contact, I need to break it, but I can't, just like all the other times, I have no control when he's around. I put my hands on his, and raise my head to kiss him, I don't care what happened, what I did, what he did... none of it matters now.
He's here and he's real enough...and I can, for one more time...

My phone starts ringing, first it sounds faraway but in less than a second, everything disappears.

I open my eyes to the empty room.

He's gone.

The window shows outside to be a perfectly sunny morning. Odd thing for a winter day.

But most importantly he's gone.

I reluctantly grab my phone and look at it. Janine.

My heart starts racing with anger as I answer the phone, and set up a time to meet her.

Pain. The only feeling in the world that one can't get used to.

I sit on the edge of the bed for a long time. Wrapping my arms around my knees, Thinking.

And once again I realize I did the right thing. I wish I could say it out loud,but I can't.

I can never say that out loud.