Time To Go

Thirteen: Kennedy

Author's Note: Happy Birthday, Kennedy (birthday buddy!)

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"I love you... too... K-Kennedy... Brock." He's stammering, and despite my soothing nature, my fingers combing through his brittle hair, and my words coming out in cooing noises to calm him, I can feel my very heart breaking beneath my ribs.

We are curled up in the corner of the room beside the closed door that is shutting us away from bitter reality... from John's illness, from my sister's lack of determination to eat, from the outside world that scares me so terrifically. No, none of it matters as I shut my eyes and feel myself whirling around the room with John cradled in my arms.

I am confused.... confused I just told a man that I loved him, and meant it.

I am scared... scared for the way that John cries, the way that his salty tears burn somewhat into the material of my shirt. The way his jutting shoulder blades dance rhythmically beneath his paper gown.

Yet, I am more than elated.

As the very feel of his lips radiates off my own, I hope that he will taste awful. That his chapped lips will cut my own, that his tongue will taste of bitter medication... but no... his lips jigsawed against mine like poetry, and his tongue tasted of nothing but sweet saliva, as though they were delicate rhymes, falling from his mouth and into mine... tasting gloriously.

John lifted his head, his hazel eyes meeting mine, and I breathed in, holding the breath in my lungs as one emotion ran riot beneath my skin... fear.

"I... I have three months..."

Absolution... a darkened corridor, without any light. I see the light at the end of it. Tracing the door with a pale white glow. I open the door shakily, my fingers wrapping around the handle and jerking it towards myself as I fall... fall into a black abyss of nothingness. There is no oxygen where I'm falling. No shadows, no light, no nothing... it's just me and I'm falling through emptiness through a vacancy in the air and then I hit the hospital floor and I am back where I was.

I have John still in my arms and he is looking directly at me, his unshed tears shimmering against his hazel irises and I just blink. Hoping for the moisture that my frozen orbs fail to consume as I stare at him. My ribs are cracking, bending inside out so that my heart is on the outside of my body, pumping so slowly that it gradually begins to cease... thump... thump... thump.

I blink and a single tear slides from my eye.

I feel John cling tighter to me, shaking his head as I continue to watch him vaguely.

"Kenny, please-"

"Where has the air gone?" I ask in a whisper as I gasp a little for the sudden urge to breathe in everything around me, as it is summoned from within.

There isn't enough space in the room, despite the absence of everything within it. There isn't enough room inside of me, despite how everything is still working. I am broken... John furrows his brow at me, his eyes scanning me up and down, his hands holding onto my arms as I simply slouch against the wall, staring where his eyes once were as I remain stock still.