Anything For Rachel

Five years, five months, two weeks, four days; 47,832 hours

                  

Calvin.      

It has been five years, five months, two weeks, four days, and 47,832 hours since the day she left. Five years, five months, two weeks, four days; 47,832 hours since my non beating heart was practically taken from my chest and put into the backseat of that black sedan to drive away and never be seen again.

The biggest issue with being an immortal and enhanced being is that I will never forget that pain. It will feel just as real as it did in that exact moment five years ago, for the rest of my existence. I envy that of humans. Their minds help them to suppress pain, it helps them remember things differently. They can take what they want from a memory, but not me. I see it all. There was never a chance in hell or heaven or anywhere else that I would forget her, but at least if I was human, like her, I could move forward. I wouldn't spend every single day obsessing over the way it sounded when she sighed, the way she smelt when she came down from the gardens, the glimmer in her eyes when she was determined, or the sound of her voice when she begged, begged me not to send her away. I can't escape it.

It is the same every single day. I can't go back inside that room that I shared with her. The room she became mine, and me hers. I can't face the memories in that room, or the ones in the gardens. I haven't been back there. I go about my nights, doing what must be done, but although I am technically a vampire, I feel more like I move through my life in a ghost like state. I'm a shell of a man without her warm hand in mine. Every time I close my eyes, hers is the only face I ever see.

Her plump red cheeks, her piercing blue eyes that saw through the soul I didn't even know I had before meeting her, her pink lips, the way she'd chew on her bottom lip when she was nervous, her strawberry blond hair blowing in the wind or slick down her back in the rain. It was always her.

I wish I could soften the memories. I wish they didn't feel so real, maybe then I could get over what happened here, but I can't. Not when her ghost haunts me everywhere.

Five years, five months, two weeks, four days, and 47,832 hours since she left, and I still can remember every second of that night in painful detail...

"I'm not going anywhere, Calvin." She promised, her big eyes swollen from tears. She tried to smile at me, pulling me closer in the bed beside her, but her expression faded, a thought clouding her mind for a minute. "I'm not going to forget this." She whispered to me as she leaned over me, her hair falling around us like a curtain and she held my face in her delicate hands. "Because I'm not going anywhere." She said again, that fierceness sparking in those eyes. She leaned down and pressed her soft lips to mine.

I kissed her back, not wanting her to see it in my face that it wasn't true. I knew then that she was not mine anymore. Never mine to begin with. Rachel always belonged to Rachel. A man can't claim ownership on a woman like her. If it were possible for my heart to break, it would have done it so many times that night...

"I need to tell you the truth, but I really just want to hold you while you sleep one last time." I'd told her, my body aching to have her beside me again.

"No." She whispered, determination was her favorite tone. "I don't want you to tell me." She decided. "I want you, Calvin, always...no matter what that means, I want to be with you. Please don't tell me if it's going to end us."

I'd tried to tell her then, but she wouldn't allow it.

"You don't understand what you're giving up." I'd told her.

Her sigh could always make me smile. "I'm telling you I don't want to know." She said again. "There is no life for me that doesn't include you." Her voice so full of love, and she looked into my eyes, her face pleading. Pleading with me not to ruin what we have here. "If you love me, Calvin, don't tell me." She demanded and I had to look away from her. I wanted to give her the world, but not this world. I knew she didn't belong here. "Make love to me, Calvin." She whispered breathily.