Trigger Warnings; mention of suicide. It is a depressing emotional tell I had to do for homework.
I set my bow down on the hard cold concrete, looking up to the girl I was shooting next to. Her face was fallen, her eyes clouded by pain, a beast I was all too familiar with. I asked her if she was alright, she responded, her voice breaking apart.
"I recently lost my brother." She spoke, her voice barely a whisper.
"He took his own life."
The words I had come to despise echoed in my mind so loud it threatened to spill out through tears, but I held them back.
"I understand to some extent," I breathed aloud, feelings and memories clouding my brain.
"I had a friend, Daniel, he was like a brother to me." I lied through my teeth.
Oh how I wished I could scream aloud. He wasn't like a brother to me, he was someone I loved as my equal, I cherished as my person. And he was gone. I felt nausea sweep over me with the foul feeling of the lie.... But if I didn't spin this tale, I believed as though I would be shamed.
We were too young- they would say. But I knew the truth. This aching torment proved otherwise. He meant everything to me, and I, him. He swore to remain by my side, he vowed to stay through the highs and lows of this life here on earth. Yet here I stood, and he had disappeared into the jaws of death.
Heavenbound, yes, yet it left a path of destruction in its wake.
My breath became hitched as I reminisced about our time together. The sorrow I had swallowed down clawed at my lungs, begging to be released.
"I'm glad someone gets it, other than the loss of a grandparent." She pulled her arrows out of the bale, the slight squeaking the taget made drowned out, time seeming to slow as the words "I love you" rang in my head.
"I'm here. If you need me." I mustered a smile, looking down at her.
Even though I had no-one there for me, to understand and hold my hand, though I wanted to end it - to be rid of the ebbing fire of numbness, I pledged to be there for her, to not leave her in the same dry and desolate wasteland my love had left for me.
I would stay strong, maybe not for myself at this point in time, I knew I couldn't.
But I would stay strong for her.
YOU ARE READING
Faerie Tales; Short Stories
Random~ a short story book ~ published shorts include; 'are we the bad guys?' a wwii based short 'ghost town' a western a/u 'Ahsoka's Goodbye' Star Wars Short 'when gods weep' a norse mythology story "when hope was born" a myth retold
