Two Eyes Down: Nearsighted

Say something

Do me a favour... Read the AN
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The freckles under her eyes showed me where the sun used to shine on her skin when she would strut down Hollywood boulevard. The way they resembled a night sky was becoming an idea of the past. Instead, when I look into the sky I see her. I see bright eyes over a bed of healed sunburns and a brighter smile painted in specks of flickering light in the distance. She's distant.

It's been nearly three months now. It's been decided by doctors and her family that they were gonna let her go on Friday. Diana asked me to say something, anything at all while this discussion was happening right in front of her. Demi was a pile of bones and failed potential but somehow I was hoping she could still tap to the beat of her eardrums as they vibrated to the sounds of our voices, of their decisions and my excruciating chest pains as I sat next to her and wailed into the hand hoping she'd hand me a breath of air as easily as she would take it away.

It's Thursday afternoon. This will be the last moments I have her alone to tell her anything and everything she would find interesting. Her family will be here half past noon and our friends would be here two hours prior. I have an hour to collect my conclusion to our love letter. I sit for a minute. Even though I'm told she isn't aware of her surroundings I'm still cautious of what I say. I want to tell her I love her, I want to tell her I wish she were still here, that I need her, but she already knows that. She knows everyone is coming for a goodbye and a final look at what could have been. I think of what she would have wanted, but we are talking decades of a future that started as dear diary.

As one final hope I wipe the tears from my eyes and do something I never thought I would. I never thought I'd have to say goodbye to replace her voice with my own. Leaning against the hand I hold so dearly and wiping my tears on dehydrated skin, I hum.

"Say something I'm giving up on you", I look where I would have met her gaze, "I'll be the the one if you want me to. Anywhere I would've followed you". The toon is slow and alone, coming out with rivers of sadness packed behind it. "Say something I'm giving up on you. And I am feeling so small. It was over my head. I know nothing at all." I stand over her, feeling the heat in my cheeks as I attempt to swipe away all that falls from my eyes before it hits her cheeks.
"And I will stumble and fall. I'm still learning to love. Just starting to crawl. Say something, I'm giving up on you.
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you.
Anywhere, I would've followed you.
Say something, I'm giving up on you, and I, will swallow my pride. You're the one that I love, and I'm saying goodbye."

My throat catches on itself and I collapse, the last of me I had collected spills all over the sheets protecting Demi from the world. The air that surrounds us seems to sprint away as I gasp for air just to cry a little harder and to feel a little more. Her corpse lives under my skin, a pile of her bones acting as my own crumble to pieces and I hang on the bed to hang on to her even though she couldn't catch me.

Dylan told me last Friday to stop crying. I never saw what was wrong with crying because the plug is being pulled from my soul mate. The ups and downs of breaths are being taken from her lungs because she is too weak to supply her own and I can't lay by her side to do it myself forever. I told him that if he felt like he was dying he'd cry like this too. I remember his expression specifically. His head bowed as his eyes rose to look to my hazy eyes. He spit that he was dying and doesn't cry at all anymore. I told him it was because he gave his soul to an infant of a disease just because he looked at it in the face and only saw the word gay painter across the forehead. He let a stigma consume him before the real thing could do so.

We interact at opposite ends of stigmas. I doubt we'd hold the same end of this one.

"You always had a knack for beautiful things" Dylan leans against the doorframe with two white roses totally stripped of thorns in his hand. The weight he's put on from eating right and following doctors orders is mostly muscles so the black blazer he wears over an ashy coloured button down looks too small for him. I don't understand why he's dressing up to go to a hospital, but I let my questions rest. Slowly, he plants himself off his heels and makes his way to the other side of the bed. He leans over slightly to let his pale fingertips rest the two white roses in her open palm and closes her fingers around them. Just before he rises, he kisses her forehead and pats her knuckles. "I never formally apologised for what I put her through for being with you. In war white flags mean surrender but I didn't think a flag would really suit the setting". Dylan weekly smiles down at me in sympathy. I don't need him to say what we both know he's thinking. I simply nod and look back to Demi.

A silence passes like a morning tribute after a massacre. Slow and quiet, blood coursing through veins pulsing through wrists like oil through water. "I know her funeral is going to be Tuesday, but I'm not going to go so I decided I'd say farewell today. Who knows, maybe she'll know I was here somehow". His words come with a drag, a thought out and planned precaution. The muscles in his neck contract every so often with syllables rehearsing in the back of his throat. "Dearest Demi", he begins, his eyes focusing on her, "I'm not good with apologising but I...regret everything I did to get in your way. Maybe it was because I was jealous of you, maybe it was because I didn't know how not to be. I wish I had done more when we buried the hatchet to prove it would stay that way. I know you always had a feeling it would be driven into your back when you let go. I thought I'd have a lot longer to make it up to you, but then again life never goes as planned. I never said anything to indicate I admired you in anyway, but I do. I want you to open your ears and let me tell you everything you have as being you that I wish I could understand. I can only know from dictionaries though. You will be missed by me, and millions more. I'm just one face in a crowd, but I sure do hope you'll notice me". It was obviously rehearsed, but that just shows how much he cared.

"You should go to her funeral", I say quietly.

"It's too personal. I'm not good with seeing corpses I used to know, anyway".

Not long after he finished what he felt needed to be done for her, Dylan left without much else to say. It was enough for me though, and I know Demi would greatly appreciate it. In the end that's all that matters anyway.

Everyone else came by to see her one last time, all planning to attend her funeral. They said what they needed to say to consolidate themselves. Self medicating like popping pills that needed to be taken to live through another day.

Demi's family stay much longer, but that was expected. Everyone cried when they laid eyes on what used to be a lively soul. Diana can't stop talking about what happened to her baby, how quick and sudden it was. Yet how slow and painful it's been to watch her deteriorate while totally unaware of it. How could she be though? She fought so hard to get to where she was and now she's here. Maddison could only stand being in the same room as Demi as long as it took for her to tell her she loved her and hug her one last time. Her parents aren't letting her be here for the final moments.

After they went home, I let myself talk about stupid things Demi would have found interesting while I held her hand. I decided that three that I should go home. Since I had gotten my licence while waiting for her, I can come and go as I please. I needed to start leaving since I won't have a reason to come back within twenty four hours from now. For once I closed Demi's door behind me, the seconds it would take for the nurses to open the door in an emergency didn't matter anymore.

Walking down the hallways I know like my own house is pretty bland. I only see one night nurse the whole trip to the lobby. I haven't eaten in over a day so I grabbed a bag of sun chips from the vending machine. I think they're gross, but she liked them.

I made sure to leave one little note for Demi on the mirror in her room as a last ditch love ballad of hope.

Say something.
-------------------------------------------this book has been nominated for best gxg Demi fan fiction this year along with two eyes down. I would love for you guys to give your vote the books you guys have been so patient in reading. Go to @lovaticfanficawards to find their book and read the rules then vote away. Nominations have closed.

Thank you guys for getting us to the voting rank!