Going On

Theo

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger."

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

I listened to the clock.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Fuck that thing. It was ancient; my mother had inherited it from her long-lost-something-or-other and she put it in the living room so that none of our relatives would feel bad and we could still pretend that "he's still with us, truly, through this clock."

The only thing it told me that even vaguely related to my relative was that I was getting closer to death every passing second, soon to being with him in collective nothingness. Maybe we'd pass each other, just float past one another, like I imagined that one time I was thinking about Noelle. Maybe we'd just float past each other and we wouldn't even know that we were related.

I looked out the window. It was raining again. I thought that maybe Noelle had brought it down with her, that her honesty and burst of bravery had busted open the clouds themselves and made water pour down on the both of us because God damn it, we needed a bath.

I glanced at my phone and thought of what to text her.

"Hey, by the way, I'm desperately in love with you and want to hold you in my arms and tell you how much I love you.

Don't off yourself, please. I don't want to have to fuck your corpse."

"When's the next meeting?

Oh, by the way, I want to stick my lips on yours and run my hands down your body."

I didn't think either of those would work.

I thought back to earlier, at the meeting, when I told everyone in the room about how Noelle had changed my life and how she blushed and stared at the ground.

"The girl who puked on my shoes," I said, "gave me a reason to live. It's not being told that dying is a shame and a waste that keeps you alive. It's being around others that truly makes you want to keep going. When you're around someone who makes you happier just by existing, that makes you feel like you're wanted and that you're not a waste, that's what people need to keep going on. The key to life is people. Without people, we have nothing. What would be valuable in this life without people to make it and celebrate it with us? Music, art, books... They're all made by people. Those things, they are what's important. People are all life is about, and the girl who puked on my shoes made me realize that. So no, my life wasn't saved by some magic pill or a therapist who said the right things to me for once. It was saved by a girl who was just as broken as me, and that's all I needed."

Noelle sat there in the room, and she cried.

She sobbed, right in front of everyone.

This brave, beautiful, and wholly broken girl broke down in front of a room full of people, crying her eyes out because a boy called her his savior.

I looked at my phone again, deciding whether or not I wanted to call her and confess my love to her.

Thunder boomed outside as I pulled on my shoes and ran out the door, desperate to get to her house before I started making smart decisions again.

I knocked on her door, trying not to soak it with rainwater even though my hands were wet. I wiped them on my jacket, concerned that I might freak Noelle out with my potential germs. That's just what I needed.

"Oh, no, sorry, we can't bang. Germs, you know? But luckily, you have hands."

I bit my lip and nervously rubbed my hands together. What if she was in bed? What if she just didn't want to see me? What if I embarrassed her, and she didn't want to talk to me anymore? She did leave without me earlier...

I knocked again.

I pictured her upstairs, doing God only knows what. Swallowing pills, dragging razors over her delicate flesh like she had before, in soft X's. Had they healed? I hadn't checked recently. No, they couldn't have. It was too recent.

I heard shuffling behind the door, and swallowed heavily.

I prayed it was Noelle who opened her door, and not her mother, or, worse yet, her father, with a loaded shotgun and a smell of whiskey on his breath.

Did her father even drink?

I wasn't sure.

But I sure as hell knew he'd blow the head off of some stupid schmuck who was trying to get in his daughter's pants.

But no.

When the door opened, it was Noelle's small, pale frame behind the door. She looked surprised at first, but then softened. She probably thought it was some big emergency; I was going to kill myself, throw myself in front of a car, wanted to tell her how much I loved her before I ended it all so I could be romantic and poetic and all of that grand shit.

That was only the half truth.

I grabbed her before she could say anything, anything at all, before she could breathe my name or count the syllables. I took her in both hands and I kissed her, I kissed her with all of my strength and all of my love. I felt her, but I wasn't there.

I was high above her, high above the both of us.

I was transcending.

I swear to God, I could feel her next to me as I rose above the trees, the clouds, the buildings and the people and the small problems and the fights that keep you up at night even though they don't matter and the quiet parts of the night and early morning that make you want to cry because you're so desperately broken and alone.

We were above that, all of it.

It was theirs to deal with. We had nothing left besides each other. We had given what we had and it was thrown back at us.

So we took each other, and we moved.

We moved upwards, towards the heavens, the only place where such a pure and honest love could ever survive.

I thanked the Universe for every second that I could take her heart along with mine, stringing it up on cords of love and loyalty and hanging it from the tallest tree to show everyone just how beautiful and pure her heart is.

We left them, and we didn't intend on coming back.

We didn't have to.

***

a/n

Hello, everyone. This is _animus, the co-writer who wrote for Noelle. In case it isn't already obvious, this is the last chapter of the story. Yes, 'Going On' is over. We sincerely hope you enjoyed it, and were able to connect with you with characters that were deeply personal to us. Our only wish was to portray depression and suicide in the way we see it, through our own first-hand experiences.

Woowoowriting and I cannot thank you enough for your support, and hope from the bottom of our hearts that you have enjoyed our work.

Have a lovely day,

_animus + woowoowriting