The Power Of Night

The Last Note

Delaney,

I know that if you've found this, you've also found the need to question your choice of staying. You may think that the night we spent together seems pointless now-
But it meant so much to me Delaney.

It started at the end of baseball season junior year, in the games before all I would feel were chest pains, ones that eventually faded.

But the last game, my heart became a ticking time bomb.
After my parents took me to the doctor, suddenly the thoughts of me having a future disapeared in my mind.

They said my heart was just done, and that it would wear out by basketball season, if I could even hold on that long.

They said my heart was done Delaney! Like when we watched those horrible movies, we just couldn't sit through them,
We were done.
But it wasn't some dumb movie, it was my life.

During the summer i was frequently in and out of the hospital. Sometimes just for a couple of days, then they'd let me leave.
But something always would happend and send right back, for weeks at a time.

Soon i had pushed my luck too far by "being too physical" so I had to drive myself to treatments every friday night.

I hated it. How was this torture supposed to make me want to go on?
But every time i went, I'd see the same girl who had the same condition I did,
Her name was Bella.

We talked as if we'd known each other since birth. She'd had the sickness a lot longer than me,
I was the rookie for once.

After I started visiting more and staying longer, the nurses combined our hospital rooms.

I'm positive that it was a decision made a hundred percent on pity. "Oh look, two dying teenagers..."
Everyone made jokes we were in love. But I could never think of Bella that way. She was my teamate through it all,
Looking back a more accurate lable would be coach.

Everything I told you about life came from some part of her. She was the most living person, who just happened to be dying the fastest.

Last week she started getting bad.
I mean she'd always had it harder than me, but now she was even worse. While I knew she wasn't going to last much longer, I at the same time was slowly disintegrating.

Then the pre-grief hit me.
Before her death even occurred my entire mind shut down.

I was going to feel the loss of someone, and soon after people were going to feel mine.

I knew that after she was gone, I couldn't just anxiously wait for my turn.

I got out, they said I had till winter to start worrying, if I got my treatments on time. I drove myself every Friday night, and was set for waiting for my last snowfall.

That is until I saw you Delaney.

It was coincidentally irritating for someone who's dying to run into someone trying to die.

Something compelled me to stop, and I know, people probably think I would still be here if it wasn't for that, but bear me out.

I was going anyway, it was my choice. Why sit and wait, when there was someone battling the same thing, but different.

I ended yours and my wait Delaney,
By making a choice and taking a chance on someone who seemed like they'd never change their mind.

And for me, to let myself except what was happening. That's what I have to thank you for Delaney.

I was so scared of hurting Bella in our final moments, so I was a jerk and went away.

Maybe the reason I let myself be with you because I wasn't scared how would feel. You've been battling feelings your entire life,and I know you can handle the truth.
You can handle imperfection.

I accepted that if I ever did hurt you, that you could handle it and I could too.

I could forgive myself.

But now, Delaney, you have to forgive me.

I was selfish. The idea of fulfilling life, it was for me.
At first.
Yeah, it was sad you were suicidal, but I was counting down my days.

I thinking of leaving like I did Bella, I was going to go to treatment. But then something changed.

When we were running away, I thought I was going to die then and there. I thought my heart was exploding.

It made me realise how close to death I really was, how we both were.

In my mind, it was either I leave you to die and I die later.
Or, it was me now and you to go on.

If I could just be brave and endure this one night, you could go on to live a thousand.

If only there was a world in which we could both coexist with you happy and me healthy.

In a way, you're the heart and I'm the bridge.
You being the heart, you have to keep beating.
Me being the bridge, as you will have to get over me.

And if that means jumping off or crossing over, it's up to you.

And say more poems, I'm sorry I couldn't know you better. But your words, they made me okay.
Wittinessing a world full of death, the way you said those lines actually gave me new life.

So if it's now or later, make your death mean something. How I did for you. If you can't seem to find a way to make your life worth it, make someone else's.

Because there's a power in night that can't be witnessed in the day,

And when the stars are out, all you have to do to see them is look up.

Some times you might need someone to show you.

-Carter ♥