Untitled [DISCONTINUED]

III

My eyes refuse to focus on Ray's heaving, bleeding chest. They know what is happening, and, in order to save me from more despair than necessary, they decide to soak in his ace. Every last bit of detail. I have never beheld this beautiful face so intently. I now know why I felt so strongly that I should cherish the moment we had, not even ten minutes ago.

"Cheyanne..." the words stagger out, drowned by blood and exhaustion, but it is still his voice. It is still the voice that I love.

My tears blind me, pouring down my face, dragging the older tears, the ones of fear, down to the earth with them. These tears are not like the ones before. These will not go on to nourish a flower and tell of the many amazing things that it had the privilege to witness. These will run down the polluted, dirty gutters of New York, along with many other tears shed by the pain of loss. And I know that these that are shed now will soon be joined by more of my own in those gutters.

The weight of my growing anguish and grief weakens my legs, yanking me down to the ground. My shaking body leans on him, my tears mixing with his blood. My cries muffled by his bloodstained shirt.

"I can't... I can't... Ray, please don't leave me..." My voice shakes violently, barely understandable.

The way his cold, damp hand strokes my cheek, covered in his blood and my tears, sends cracks tearing through my heart. Small pieces chip off, flying away and launching shards into every part of me they can reach.

This is worse than heartbreak. The pain is agonizing, both emotionally and physically. Heartbreak is pain, plucking and teasing. This is pain releasing its wrath on every part of me. Red hot knives tear through my torso, chains wrap themselves around my throat, choking me. This is pain, in its true, merciless form. This is the kind of pain that strips you of all hope, caring, and happiness, leaving you with naked despair. It is the kind that should never be felt.

"Cheyanne..." his dying voice struggles out in a whisper again, pulling me back to my final moments with him.

"You can't leave," my voice is dry, demanding, unfeeling.

"I feel like I don't have a choice about that," he breaths, pink tinted drool spilling out of his mouth.

I sneak a quick glance at the wound in his chest. A fatal wound, pulling at the hands in the clock of Ray's life. His young, incomplete life. The small bullet, placed there by raw hatred and possessiveness, ripping the gears out of that clock. This is the wound that will take him from me. This bullet will change my life.

My hand brushes over the wound, causing Ray to cringe. My eyes flit back to his, catching the light slowly disintegrate. I keep my eyes on his, any light in mine disappearing along with his. The breeze that once danced around us now crawls by, carrying the light from our eyes with it. It wraps the light around us teasingly, not quite touching us, but taunting us. Taunting us by dangling it in front of our faces, knowing fully that our arms are too weak, and our hearts far too broken to be able to reach out and grab it, to hold it to our chests before it's gone forever.

"I love you, Cheyanne. I hate to leave you so soon," his breathing becomes more uneven as he concentrates on forming his final words. "I hate to leave our future to the imagination. I don't want to leave you. But, whatever you do, promise me one thing."

I nod. The words are caught in my throat, too weak and sad to make it the whole way.

"Be happy. I know it'll seem hard at first, but I don't think I'll ever be able to be at peace unless the love of my life, and the life beyond, is at peace as well. Move on. Choose to be happy," he forces the last words out with more effort than before.