Insomniacs (#1)

9. one final time

^i am not an artist. at all but i tried <3

3 years earlier.

I've never really had a problem with blood.

Whenever Gabe or April fall when riding their bikes, I love patching them up. Obviously, I don't like that they're hurt but I enjoy playing doctor for a little while.

I think I'd love to go into medicine, play doctor all the time, heal and help.

I've never really had a problem with blood. Until now, I didn't realise I had a problem with hospitals.

But I do.

Maybe its because I'm walking through the silent hallway knowing April's already dead and Gabe's going to be soon.

Mum's been crying so hard that she can't form words nor can she take in an actual breath. And I'm starting to feel like a monster because there's nothing going on in that head of mine, not a single tear sliding down my cheek.

I've repeated the sentence to myself a few times.

April's dead. Gabe's dying.

But its not impacting me the way such an impactful sentence should. Its giving me the same nothing feeling of any ordinary sentence. Just doesn't feel right.

So instead, I think about how pretty April is as I walk through the deadly quiet hallway with a broken, blinking light. She's always been prettier than me but I've never been envious of such a thing. I love adoring her beauty.

Her face is just beautiful. Small nose and bright blue eyes, freckles and full lips.

I have freckles but only on my nose. I do wish I had them peppered all over my face like April does. Me and Gabe love connecting the dots, it makes her giggle.

Instead, I think about how we'll open the present they got me soon. And I wonder what on earth it could be.

Someone's shaking my shoulders, I realise so I snap out of it, looking up to mum with a smile.

She blinks back at me for a moment and then her frown deepens, a sob cracking through her chest as she looks over me.

Maybe I really am a monster?

But then she brings me to her chest, so tightly that I find it a little difficult to breathe.

"I'm so sorry, Aria darl. I'm sorry its turned out this way, in the end. I'm sorry for what you'll feel, my baby. I'm sorry you'll have to feel it." She says between her gasps, speaking to me as if she was pleading.

I furrow my eyebrows, open my mouth in question but she pulls back and stands in front of me.

"I'm not sure its such a good idea for you to see him-"

"Its okay, mum. I promise, I do." I tell her, wiping away another tear of hers and it seems like the action made her hurt more.

"Its Gabe. Let me see him." I smile.

"Gabe's not okay, Aria-"

"Mum, just let me see him." I say so harshly that even I was taken aback.

She just pinches her eyes shut, her shoulders shaking in another cry. She opens her glassy hazel eyes to look at me.

That's the most sadness I've ever seen in my life, I realise as I look into them.

And then she's opening up a door, leading me into it with her hand in mine. The curtains are drawn but its still light enough for me to see him as I walk over.

Purple. And blue. And not Gabriel.

That's not Gabriel.

His jaw looks misshapen, some of his hair shaved, his entire face so swollen that I couldn't make out his features even if I wanted to.

His eyes are all big and shut, I can't even see the brown in them. I want to see his eyes, I love Gabe's eyes. In sunlight, they turn green. Beautiful, beautiful green but now they're shut and purple and that's not Gabriel.

There's a massive machine and he's connected to it from a tube in his mouth and another one in his nose and so many wires.

Let me see your pretty eyes, Gabe.

I think I said the words aloud but I'm not sure because I can't hear anything anymore.

I didn't realise my hands were shaking until I reach them out to hold his. As much as everything's scaring me, it doesn't matter. Not when Gabe is scared too.

I kiss his knuckles slowly and someone's sobbing so hard behind me. Mum, I'm assuming.

"Wake up for me, Gabe." I smile, pressing another kiss to his cold cold hand.

"You wake up for me now. Because we're supposed to live forever, you and I and April."

And then a kick to my stomach. A punch to my gut. A massive, irreparable tear in my heart and it feels so painful that its as if blood is gushing out, filling my lungs.

April's dead. My pretty, pretty April.

April's dead.

But I have no time to let myself collapse from my bleeding heart because a loud, loud beeping echoes through the room. I look to Gabriel, he's as still as before but the machine besides him is flashing.

Time feels as if it slows for an allowed moment.

And somehow, I know this is it for us. Our time's, forever, up.

The only chance I'll get with him when I couldn't with her and I can't waste it by panicking over myself. The end of mine and Gabe's tale, just after the end of mine and April's.

So I pressed my lips to his cold knuckles one final time, composing myself so I could speak to him one final time.

"Live your forever with April now. Don't be scared." I say, the most painful smile I have ever smiled making its way up my lips, the first tear of mine dropping onto his small, soft hand as I shut my eyes. Silence as I quietly say, "Check up on me from the stars, won't you?"

Mum breaks behind me, so loudly and so painfully.

And I'm being ripped away from him, white coats and blue scrubs swarming his body in an attempt to save him but I know they're gone. My Gabriel. My April.

My entire life feels dead.

A sudden and total absence.

And now, this pain. This insufferable, unendurable pain makes me want to join them. It makes it seem so much easier to keep thinking about April's freckles.

But now, I think of April's freckles and they're tainted by how I'll never see them again.
I think of Gabe's sunlit green eyes and know they'll be shut forever.

I'll never be able to annoy him into moving into sunlight so I could see the green in them, I'll never connect the dots again. And I can't breathe and it feels as if I never will again. And why like this? Why not an ending where we grow really, really old?

I think of them and know they'll be buried soon.

I think of them and I die too.