The Wings Of A Caged Bird | First Draft

chapter 16 : you are the sun

His hand reaches out to me, as mine does to his. But I fail to take it. He is and will forever be out of my reach.

Time does not turn to fluid, the world does not become a slow-motioned blur, his horrified face does not become smaller little by little, his scream isn't as loud in my ears as it probably is. All movies have ever done to us is lie. Because before I process anything, my back crashes into the water surface as though it's crashing into concrete, the breath getting knocked out of me, pain shooting through every inch of my limbs. I expect it to end there, but the cost of falling is that you will fall endlessly, and it will hurt.

Time does seem to slow down when I'm under water, inhaling hydrogen di oxide instead of oxygen against my will. Because transitioning from air to water in two seconds isn't the same as transitioning from 17 to 18 in a year—though both are painful, one is more evident and immediate than the other.

It all slows down, but not enough to save me from hitting rock bottom.

The blow opens up my mouth again, as more water pours in, filling my stomach like an empty jar. When I open my eyes, I see red droplets floating on the blue sky reflected above the surface. I try to move my hands and legs, but they're all tied to stones. I wait to float up to the surface, but the cost of falling is that you won't be able to.

And it will hurt.

It hurts; it all hurts so terribly. But what hurts more than being stuck with aching paralyzed limbs at the bottom of a pond is the face of the boy I hurt a moment ago. What hurts is the way I want my fingers on his skin, only to realize I won't be able to stop with just the fingers. In this rock bottom, will I perhaps find the shelter I need?

Or is this the sanatorium of the ending?

My eyes begin to move upwards. My consciousness scatters all around like blood from the torn pieces of flesh. My vision becomes blurred like a foggy window. I start to feel myself disperse, disassemble, disintegrate, dissociate, disconnect, disengage, disentangle, dismember, and disappear. Everything that happens, happens at once. How will someone as weak as me ever survive this?

As I drift off to the world beneath the world, the blue surface of the water is replaced by a familiar face. The face is everything I need; the face is home.

I smile.

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The sun is a ball of yellow light shining on the other side of the surface. The sun is you, you are the sun.

You were.

Because that night, when you were trembling from the drumming thunderstorm outside the window of my room, you told me, "Cedar, I'm scared." And I told you, there is nothing to be scared of, because I'm here. I'm here, I'm right here, and I will always be. I would've always been. If only you just let me. If only you weren't so stubborn about taking the responsibility of brightening the whole world on your shoulders all by yourself. If only you let me be the cloud that moves with you, the bird that roams near you, or the breeze the flies past you. Preferably the clouds, because the two of us are—were—supposed to be together, forever and evermore.