Make me yours

Chapter 14

Grief. 

The process that happens after losing someone. This emptiness inside your chest. What a strange feeling.

Of course, it is different for each person. After all, we are all different. We all grieve differently. 

On me, grief doesn't look good. Never will. If you asked me before I would tell you that I would never do what I did. However, I did it. I can blame grief but I am not sure if it is totally true that it was its fault. That's the magic of it, isn't it? You never know what you are capable of until you do it. Until it is too late. 

The morning after James died I wake up of a short sleep after a night full of nightmares to my brother sitting on the cold floor of his bedroom. 

He looks awful. Has huge black dark circles around his eyes and is too pale. And I know I don't look any better because I don't feel any better. 

He is drinking his black coffee and looking at me. However, when he notices that I am awake, looking at him he looks away and without looking at me again he asks the question that I know has been on his head ever since I entered his house full of blood. 

"Did you do it?" 

He has every right to ask me that. It was his best friend. I know that my brother loved him. I saw it in his eyes and smile and how proudly he talked with him. I knew it and he didn't ask questions and told the police a lie to protect me. Me, a person that from what he knows could have killed his best friend. 

I try to focus on those thoughts. Not the hurt on my heart. Not the emptiness. Because even tho I know he deserves an explanation it hurts me that he has to ask if I murder the boy that I was in love with. It hurts that I have to relive seeing his shirt getting bloody and it hurts that it happened, it truly happened. It hurts so deeply that I can not breathe. 

"I would never," I say slowly. As soon as this leaves my mouth big tears fall from my eyes and wet my already wet face. I didn't know that I had so many tears, I didn't know it was physically possible for me to cry this much. 

He comes into the bed hugging me as if he regretted asking it. 

"You have to tell me what happened. So I can protect you, Livie."

I look at his eyes. Almost as red as mine. What did we do to deserve this? Dear Lord, why us? 

But I need to tell him, once more he deserves an explanation. He deserves it. So I force myself to open my mouth and leave weak words. I start with the fight the terrible words that he told me and how it broke my heart. It was a terrible moment and I can't help but smile at the irony. When I was there I would do anything to disappear, to go away. But now, seating on this bed with my throat hurting and my eyes red as blood, I would do anything to come back there. To see him one last time. 

I tell him about the letter and how it made me forgive him and how I found that it would be pretty difficult for me to be mad at James no matter what would he do to me in the close future. How silly I was, picturing a future. 

I tell him that I walked to him in that garden and I force my failing brain to remember every single detail of that boy. I force my brain to do it. The way he was nervously seated wondering if I was going to show up and the way that his eyes filled with hope. Him. I force myself to remember James, alive James. 

Tears fall aggressively down my eyes and I don't try to stop them, it is impossible at this point. 

So I keep talking, I force myself to keep my mouth open and I force words out of it. 

I tell this part with excessive detail as if I am trying to prove that it has truly happened, more to myself than to the boy looking at me. 

I tell him how he stood open arms and gave one single step back. How he looked confident but had a sharp fear in his eyes. How I looked around to see where the noise was from and how he fell on my arms. How my knees failed me and how I fell to the cold grass. How I try to help somehow and how I failed to even find the bullet. How the life in his eyes faded away and how hard it was to watch.