Can't I Touch Your Heart?

Chapter 73 Goodbye

Elford threw the medical reports on Ember's bed, "You're a mess,"
He chuckled and looked at his guitar, his thin fingers rubbing the worn-out strings, the guitar strings scars on his skin, a gentle fingerstyle hitting beautiful notes. Blue forget me not flowers kept beside him, that slipped the papers over them, making those report pages fall on the white, disinfected floor and spread around. Loraine and Maple sat outside his room, waiting for Elford to finish talking to him.

"Your muscular dystrophy is progressively spreading from your stomach to other parts of your body. That's why you can't feel the fingers on your does. Your body is slowly paralysing itself. Do you realise how serious it is?" Elford ask.
Ember continued playing the guitar, slowly his hair fell over his blue eyes and gave an ethereal glance as the sun glaze fell over his shrinking body, "I do,"
"Then, why are you still smiling?"

"Because I'm playing my guitar," He laughed and looked up at Elford.
"But that's something so trivial,"
Ember smiled and looked down at his guitar, his eyes had more wrinkles than Elford now, digging deep into his skin, like sapphire stones sinking into clay,

"Everyone has that one thing,"

Rhea placed the white canvas on the easel.

"That one thing that...
That makes them feel good," Ember looked at Elford.

She opened the glass case and took out that old, glass paintbrush from it.

"That one thing makes life wonderful,"

She poured some water into the bowl and dipped the paintbrush into it. 

Even if it's something ordinary
You doing it,
Makes it special,"

The number of audiences had increased on that day. She saw Neel, standing beside her family with his hands crossed and Arjun and Meenu sitting on those red, plastic chairs arranged for the audience. Everyone was there for her. She felt overwhelmed by looking at the number of eyes that were looking at her. The canvas was already fixed on the easel and the paint was ready to be devoured. 

She took a deep breath, it was so quiet she could hear herself breathing. The bell went off and everyone began to paint. But she didn't know what to paint. The time limit was three hours, the theme was 'Can't I Touch Your Heart?' The hourglass was slowly draining the sand to the other side. Rhea's family and friends stared at her. Her father was looking at her, indifferently as usual. Rhea stood before her canvas and Ember stood beside her. It was a hallucination again, but it looked so real. He looked healthy. She looked at him and he looked at her with a smile, his gentle blue eyes peeping at her through the blonde strands of hair. 

Ember played a song on his guitar as he sat alone in the room. Elford was talking to Loraine and Maple outside the hospital room. The forget me nots beside Ember slowly left each other, as petals flew away in the breeze filling the room with his scent.

An hour had passed, yet Rhea was immobile.
"What is Rhea doing?! She'll lose this way!" Noor yelled. 

Rhea touched Ember's hand, the smell of his hair reminded her of Sweet Autumn Clematis. It was calming. His hands felt hot, his voice silenced, but that quietness between them meant more to her than any other conversation.

"You are so warm," She talked to him in her mind, because she knew tears won't be far if she uses her voice or listens to his, "And so beautiful. Like a shining ember. Just like a golden sun. And I, I am abandoned into the soil; Where no light could ever reach, frozen in the dark. Just like my name.