Smoke and Fire ||Lams Soulmate AU ||

Just One Yesterday (Epilogue)

Alexander's POV

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He was like a fire; he was mysterious, wild, uncontrollable, possibly even dangerous. Yet, there was something about him that would draw you in. Maybe it was his irresistible beauty, or how he was so alive even though he was dying inside. But, just as fast as he came, he was gone. He vanished before I could even begin to comprehend what had happened. No matter what, I couldn't help but be completely and utterly infatuated with everything about him.

Even as he lay lifeless in the elegant, wooden coffin, I thought of nothing other than how much I was in love with John. I wanted nothing more than for his heart to start beating, his lungs to start pumping, and his eyes to flutter open to find me right there by his side, like I should have been all this time.

I had no tears left to cry. I had no will to do anything. I almost didn't come to the funeral, but Peggy practically dragged me from my home.

She held my hand the whole time. We might not have been very close, but I was lucky to have someone like her to confide in. We were the only ones who truly understood the heartbreak the other was going through, and it was refreshing to hear something other than the typical "I'm sorry for your loss" whenever John's name came up.

"You doing okay?" Peggy asked, taking a seat next to me. She held my hand in hers warmly and caressed my knuckles with her thumb.

"Not exactly. You?"

"Not exactly."

A half-smile tugged at the corners of my lips for the first time in a while. I was still too distraught to display any full emotions yet.

Martha was standing over John, her hand holding his tightly, hoping that she would feel something, anything, to indicate he wasn't really gone. I had already tried. There was no point in it anymore.

I stood and made my way to her side. Her eyes were glossy again, and her lip quivered each time she took a glance at her brother.

"Please, John," she pleaded. "Be not dead. I need you not dead. I never got to count your freckles."

I rubbed her back gently as she wept. I knew how close she was with her brother, so I understood her pain.

"Can I have a moment with him?" I asked.

She looked up at me with sad eyes and nodded. I wiped her cheek before she took a seat next to Peggy.

John looked... stunning, and at peace. No matter how hard he tried to play it off, there was always something gnawing at his insides, so seeing him look so at ease was relieving. He wore a sleek, black suit that definitely wasn't his style, but it looked amazing with his curly brown locks. His skin was pale and dull, save for the freckles. God, there had to be thousands of them, like stars in the night sky. There was a knot in my chest that had been sitting there since the last time we spoke.

Tears finally starting to form in my eyes, and there was a heavy sob that erupted from my throat. "You're not allowed to leave me yet, I-I need you."

I fell to my knees, my head resting on him. There wasn't a heart beat. His chest didn't rise and fall like it was supposed to.

"I'm so sorry," I sobbed into his lifeless body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry John!"

I couldn't close the flood gates. It felt like my entire insides were turning and someone drove a stake right through my heart. How does anyone deal with the death of their soulmate?

I remembered the first time we met. I was drinking (which gave me the courage to do all of this) and dancing and I found him staring at me from across the room. He looked like a complete douche, but I convinced myself that he couldn't have been that bad. He would sneak glances at me while smoking his cigarette, and no matter how much I hated people who smoked, he seemed to be the exception for some reason.

God, John was far from perfect, but he was perfect for me. If I had just allowed him to have his secrets, maybe I could have been there with him during his last few minutes instead of pretending to have forgotten about him through a phone call.

I'm such an idiot.

I wiped my nose with my dress shirt sleeve and sniffled, trying to regain my composure once more. I hated breaking down like this more than anything, especially in front of people. It made me feel like the pathetic, worthless piece of shit that I was.

Peggy came up to me and helped me back to a chair. I wept in her shoulder as she held me. "I miss him so much."

"I know, I do too," she said.

Peggy has spent the entire day after John died crying. I guess a part of her knew that she needed to be there for other people, so she tucked her feelings away for the sake of others after that. She was truly too good of a friend, let alone person.

She held me close, even as Thomas came over and squeezed her shoulder for comfort.

Oh, I must have forgot to mention that they're kind of a "thing" now.

We had arranged for a whole ceremony to take place, which I found to be really sweet and comforting. We each placed a flower in John's hand and had a moment to say anything to him we needed to.

When my turn came, I placed the rose and held his hands for a moment. "I love you," I whispered. "So much that it hurts." I wiped a stray tear from under my eye with my thumb and rubbed the back of my neck. "I'll see you soon."

You know, Runako means "beautiful" in Shona, but the only beautiful thing in this town was him.

Three days. That's all it took for me to fall in love with him. I never thought it was possible for feelings as strong as love to develop in such a short amount of time. Love is one of those things that comes in different forms. I loved my parents, I loved writing, I loved learning, and I loved John.

Without John, though, everything else just seemed so... trivial, like there was no point to living life without him beside me. I wasn't truly living until I had met him, and I let him slip through my fingers. There was nothing left for me in life. I had made memories, had my ups and downs, found, and then proceeded to lose, the love of my life and soulmate, and I didn't have anything left to look forward to.

When I finally got home, I was lucky enough to be hime alone for a while. I glanced at the rabbit-on-a-motorcycle shaped birthmark on my wrist, which was surrounded by scar tissue and some fresh cuts from earlier that day. It was a reminder that I wasn't going to find anyone like John ever again, whether I liked it or not.

That's when I finally let the bullet take me out.

My real mother, my brother James, and John we're all waiting for me.

It was time.

~~

Wow um okay I never thought I would say this, but I finally finished this book!!! I want to thank everyone for reading and voting and commenting and just showing some love to my crappy work. I'm also proud to say that I hit 1k reads, which is pretty great considering this is my first completed book.

I'm going to be starting some new projects soon, so keep and eye out for them!

(Also this book ended way sooner than I thought it would, and I wasn't planning on it ending like this at all, so that just goes to show my terrible planning skills.)