Open When I'm Gone

10. Partners In Crime.

I lay in bed tossing and turning until the sun comes up. I can hear her voice in my head, and it won't stop. I want to go back, and maybe I could, someday.

"Simon," She laughed as I helped her to her feet, she trembled but it didn't matter. I wrapped my arms around her waist, leading her to the middle of my bedroom. There was music playing in the background, my favorite track from her favorite artist.

The CD sang out softly as Eddy and I swayed in the darkness of my bedroom at midnight. She had just gotten out of the hospital and could barely walk, but she wanted to dance like we used to. So we did. I could tell even before we started that she was in more pain than usual, shaking so bad she could barely stand. But I held her up, just as I always had, and we just swayed as one.

"You know how incredible you are?" She whispered, tucking her face into my shoulder. She smelled like the chemical orange cleaner they use in the hospitals intermingled, and it's so familiar all I want to do is curl up with her until I learn how to never forget it.

"I wouldn't be this way if it wasn't for you," I mumbled into her hair, trying my hardest to hold up her crumbling body as we turned in circles.

Verse two played on, talking of haunted houses and hiding in closets. Still we swayed.

"Can we just stay here forever?" I waited until she turned her face up to mine to kiss her on the nose, resting my forehead against hers, breathing the same air for just a moment. Her breath was warm against my face, a small, resistant smile, plastered across her face. She always had that smile with her, like a memento that she held through her darkest moments.

"Always," I felt her arms drift up, wrapping themselves around my neck, her lips drifting from my lips to my cheeks, down my neck and around my shoulder. Everywhere her lips touched, sparks ignited inside me, burning yellow and purple and green and red. Fireworks across my skin as she touched every part of my body that she knew I hated; Every one of my freckles, the scars on my hands, the uneven curls that I always try to plaster down, my crooked nose. On and on until she has memorized every part of me that I try to ignore.

We didn't even have to speak as we swayed, the singer's voice filling my room, the orange light from the sunset filling my room in a golden glow.

Her hands twisted around the collar of my shirt as she grinned at me. Her skin was warm, soothing against my skin.

I gently dropped one hand down to her legs, lifting her slowly up until she's straddling my body, her ankles tucked at the small of my back. Her breath is warm against my neck, her touch tender.

I hummed the lyrics in her ear, her head resting on my shoulder. Lyrics about folk songs and love that lasts forever. It was one of those moments that felt so perfect you thought the second you left it would be as if it never happened. So we stood there, swaying to the calm music, my hands in her hair, her body against mine.

And we danced until the sun went down and the stars began to dance with us.

And that was how it was with her. We danced, and we swayed until she would fall asleep in my arms and I would tuck her into bed. And that was how we spent most of our time.

I wish I would've stayed home and danced with her the night of the senior party, instead of pressuring her into going with me. I should've, I was awful to her.

She laid on my bed, her dark hair spread around her, her makeup reflecting in my LED light strips. Even when she was just laying there, tired and ill, she was always beautiful. I see that now.