More than a Melody (H.S) ON HOLD

39

thirty nine

I am lying on a bed of coral.

The sun is down, I am alone, the coral has cut me in places I can feel but not see. I can't move or sit up because doing so would shatter this fragile foundation and wound me further.

The ocean is dry, I am a thousand feet up, I think. I can barely see as I angle my head to the right, to the left, back again. The moon above me is a bulb of frothy milk, shadowy craters forming a taunting smile that I mock with sad, sunken eyes. My body is being held together by this dying reef, but I hear the cracks, feel this colony of life shift beneath me. A stack of cards, waiting to flutter down.

"Jane," the arid ocean hums, "open your eyes."

And then the moon and the coral is gone and all I see is etiolated emerald.

"Oh thank the heavens," Harry chokes with hands cupping and covering either cheek.

"Has she been eating?" I hear Miles say, but his voice is muffled and everything surrounding me is still a bit hazy.

"Of course, yeah, I've made sure."

"And drinking plenty of water?"

I'm still confused and in a daze but that doesn't mean I can't make out the way Harry scrunches his face up and scoffs, "I've definitely made sure she's been drinking water mate, this isn't triggered by anything other than what she's been told. Her anxiety is through the roof right now."

What she's been told.

Shit. Wasn't a dream.

"A-," I swallow, "am I going to be alone?"

Harry is still caressing my cheek with worry so I kindly set his hands aside while Miles hands me a bottle of water. I slowly am able to overcome this whirling state of confusion as I'm brought back to reality.

"No, definitely not. Harry will be with you."

Harry?

"Where will you be, Miles?"

"Here, in Oregon. Would be suspicious if I packed up and left for Italy, and I need to be here with everyone else to.." To plan the funeral.

"And won't it be suspicious if Harry happens to leave for Italy the morning of my death?"

I grip the water bottle as if it were a stress bottle, the plastic crinkling and bundling together with the pressure of water threatening to blow.

"Your death will be reported as of late Tuesday evening, around midnight, several hours after Harry leaves. To everyone, it will appear to be a tragedy tied to losing him."

Sitting up, the tingling pain of my back traveling to the very ends of my limbs, I shudder and toss aside the bottle.

"This is absolutely awful." Is all I manage to say, feeling horrible, wrong- knowing that families, people, actually go through this and here I was using it as a facade to escape from a life I never anticipated to live.