Alone on the water

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (Last Chapter)

-I cried a little while writing this tbh, so yeah-

*Chapter 22* (the last chapter)

I look fanatically for the key to open the door. I check under the door mat and in the flower pot next to the door. I know Mr. and Mrs. Horan keep a spare key somewhere and I just had to find it.

I finally found it in the dirt under a bush, great place huh?

I open the door and burst into the house, not bothering to close the door behind me. I run up the stairs to Niall's room and his doors wide open. I see him lying on the ground, blood surrounding him. But he was breathing, his eyes were open. He was still alive!

I rush over to him and take his hand hard in mine. There was a bullet wound in his stomach, there was a lot of blood pouring out.

I looked Niall in the eyes and my eyes started to fill with tears.

He is breathing slowly, deliberately. I want to talk but I don’t know what to say, or if it will help either of us. He looks at me.

“Mimi…” he begins, and I see the fear in his eyes. “I thought I was ready for this.” His voice shakes.

“I’m here, Niall.”

“I’m afraid, Mimi.” I have never heard his voice so small.

Nothing I ever do will ever be this important again.

I pull him into my arms and tuck his head down to my shoulder. He is so thin. He folds into an unbelievably small space, fitted into my lap; my arms can encircle him completely. He grasps a handful of my jacket and lets out a shaky breath.

“Just relax,” I whisper.

“I don’t want to leave you anymore. I’m sorry”

“I don’t want you to go.”

We are skating near the edge. Dull horror floods me. I desperately don’t want to hear it. Just as desperately, I don’t want to say it. Right now, I am losing my best friend, and that is bad enough. I don’t know if I could stand to lose more. I cannot look at the future that we’re now being denied and admit that we could have had anything other than the friendship I already know. If I look down that road which is now closed and see something else there, always glimpsed but never reached for, never acknowledged, it might really break me for good.

But this isn’t about me. If he needs it, then it’ll be said. And God help me.

I feel his limbs loosening. “Mimi,” he says, and the word is slurred. “Need to see you.”

I shift him around in my arms until we’re face to face. His eyelids are slack. He is shaking.

“Niall, just look at me. Don’t think. Don’t try to hang on. You just look at me, okay?”

He does. His eyes flick over my face like he’s trying to do what I was doing earlier, and memorize me. I know that I won’t be spared, because he hasn’t been.

I kiss his lips, gently. I feel the tension sag away from him and his hand on my face. I hold him close, our foreheads together again. His eyelids are flickering now. He kisses me back, straining like it’s taking the last of his strength. His hands clench in my jumper and his eyes blaze as he looks at me.

“I want you to be the last thing I see,” he rasps.

I hold his gaze. I feel every second like a blade against my skin but I hold it. I won’t look away because this is sacred and I’m long past the point of salvage anyway. He takes a few deep breaths. His eyes close.