Keep Me Close

Just Hold Me

Ramin POV
All I could manage to do is shake in her arms....
"Your Father has only a few days left. Im sorry"
The words rang through my head as I laid my head in the lap of the girl I loved. My feelings for her never changing for a moment in the past two years, they only grew. She ran her fingers through my head as the sweat dripped down my forehead trying to calm me. She held my hand tightly, stroking her thumb over my fingers. We had been sitting there in silence for hours now, ever since I got back from the hospital, and collapsed on the floor. My Papa had a coughing fit while helping me put new horse shoes on the horses. One of them got startled by his coughing and he ending up getting kicked in the head. He bled everywhere. He was screaming in pain, I yelled for the closest person to go find a doctor. It was no use, the damage was done already. If the cancer wasn' going to take him from me soon enough, this was going to. He passed out in my arms before the carriage came to take him to the hospital. I chased behind them on a horse, refusing to leave him. He was knocked into a coma, he wouldn't wake up. He just laid there, his body lifeless. My once strong Papa was now a lifeless corpse. Just earlier today he said to me,
"I'd rather die here doing my work, than die alone in a hospital bed." Those were the last words he said to me. He made me promise a few weeks prior to not let them take him when it was time. He wanted to die here, at our apartment in his bed. In the very bed my mother had died in five years ago. I broke my promise, but I couldn't let him stay here bleeding to death. I felt more tears leave my eyes, Lily quickly drying them with the hem of her dress. I loved her for these reasons. She could have left hours ago, she could have been home with her Father right now, but she chose to be here with me.
"Sing for me." I mumbled. The first words I had said in hours.

There is a castle on a cloud
I like to go there in my sleep
Aren't any floors for me to sweep
Not in my castle on a cloud

The sound of her voice could calm me like nothing else. She had the voice of an angel. I think the first time my feelings for her became realized was when I heard her sing, we were ten years old. Ten years old, so innocent and full of life. Not a care in the world, so free and high spirited. Now we sat here, as young adults full of grief and sorrow. She often would come to me and weep for her mother, knowing that I would always be there with open arms. Now it was my turn to grieve.

There is a lady all in white
Holds me and sings a lullaby
She's nice to see and she's soft to touch
She says "Ramin I love you very much"

She didn't mean it in that way and it hurt every inch of my being knowing she didn't love me in the way I loved her. She saw me as her brother, and nothing else. I shifted myself so I could watch her, my back now hurting from laying on the uncomfortable hay bails in the loft of the barn. My favorite to think besides the rocks on the beach. I watched her emerald eyes shimmer in the light of the torches mounted on the wall.

I know a place where no ones lost
I know a place where no one cries
Crying at all is not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud

"When was the last time you slept Ramin?" She asked breaking me out of the trance her voice had put me in.
"I don't remember" I said truthfully. I hadn't slept in maybe a week. I would stay up through the night walking the park or playing my guitar I had made. I couldn't stop the nightmares of losing my Papa from invading my mind. She brushed back my dark hair from my forehead.
"Sleep, please. For me." ,she said looking at me, her eyes watering. "Please, Im worried about you" she said as a tear left her eyes.
I softly closed my eyes, and faded away to my peaceful slumber as she held my head in her lap.

Erik POV
We stayed until the restaurant closed. She and I had finished a almost two bottles of wine by ourselves. I walked her home, both of us laughing about stories and things in our past. She shared so many stories with me about her childhood. I let her go on, and on. We laughed and cried, she told me stories about her schooling to become a teacher. She was so full of light, and warmth despite everything she had been through. We finally arrived at her small apartment,
"Thank you Erik, for everything." She said looking deep into my eyes. Her pale skin having an adorable red tint due to the wine.
"Your very welcome." I said. Her eyes told me something, she wanted me to kiss her but there was a lot of hesitation. I stood there lingering my gaze on her. I wanted to press my lips to her's so badly but I knew it was too soon. It was the first night I had met her, she was also so vulnerable, because of the drinking and the emotional state she was in. It was also the anniversary of the death of her fiancé, I couldn't disrespect that.
'Erik?"
"Yes?'
"Promise me this won't be the last time I see you?" She wanted to see me again... I answered by pressing a soft kiss on her warm cheek. She gasped at my action. I looked back at her, her eyes full of lust. I knew what she wanted but it wasn't the time.
"Any time you want to see me, I'll be there." I said softly into her ear. I backed up and she kissed my cheek quickly as if she was a young girl kissing the boy she had a crush on.
"Good night" she said opening the door and slipping inside. I stood there outside the door processing the night. I had anther chance, a chance with someone who understood everything that has happened to me in the passed few years.
I stumbled back to my home, the liquor now really kicking in. I suddenly felt my body temperature pick up and i pulled off my waist coat and unbuttoning the top few buttons of my dress shirt. Nobody would see me, it was almost three in the morning. Nobody was out, and if they were they were all far too drunk to even realize I was there. There were still however a few couples walking in the night, holding each other and looking deep into each other's eyes with such lust. I never had experienced it in my life, I only seduced a young girl who I thought I could spend the rest of my days with. She gave me the gift of a child yes, but the gift of endless days together in love slipped through my fingers.
Sierra slowly came back into my mind. She truly could be a gift from the heavens, but why would heaven ever send a gift to me? I monster... I've killed and hurt innocent people. Act's of a monster, not a man. I didnt deserve the mercy of heaven, this lonesome gargoyle did not. I don;t know if she could ever see me through my own damage truly.

So many times out there
I've watched a happy pair of lovers walking in the night
They had a kind of glow around them
It almost looked like heaven's light
I knew I'd never know that warm and loving glow
Though I might wish with all my might
No face as hideous as my face
Was ever meant for heaven's light
But suddenly an angel has smiled at me
And kissed my cheek without a trace of fright
I dare to dream that she might even care for me
I swear it must be Heaven's light

I didnt deserve a second chance at love, I didn't even know if I was capable of it ever again. My Christine was my everything and she was now gone. The empty hole in my heart, longing for her once again was still there. I could never fill the void of my Christine, but maybe, just maybe there was someone who could fill some of the emptiness in my soul. Someone to show this hellish soul, heavens light.

I was home when I saw a figure sitting in the garden. Lily sat there, still in her dress and she wore a mans jacket.
"Lil?" I asked approaching her. She turned to see me standing there, and quickly wipped her face. She had been crying. "What's wrong mon amour?" I said growing concerned. I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her, she leaned into my chest.
"Ramin." Is all she said.
"Whats wrong, is he okay?" I asked worrying about the young man, I looked at him as one of my own.
"He's, he's okay. Its Dante, he had a coughing attack today while working on a horse and it got startled. He got kicked in the head, he's in a coma. They say he only has a few days left to live," she said her tears slowing. My heart hurt hearing this, Dante was a good man. I had considered him a friend, knowing him quite well from all the Friday nights we had spent at the stable parties, and all the times he treated my daughter with such kindness when she would spend time with Ramin at the stables. "Ramin is distraught. He hasn't slept in days, worrying already about his father's cancer. Now this, all he did was shake in my arms, barely muttering a few words. I got him to sleep by singing him to sleep" she said beginning to cry again. I pulled her closer to me and kissed her head softly.
"He's a strong boy, you must remember this. No matter what he will be okay. I promise you that" i said looking at her emerald eyes still glassy with tears. I knew what I said was true. Ramin would be alright in the end, even when it did come time for Dante to leave us, which I prayed wasn't soon. I held her in my arms before we both grew tired and retuned to our beds and fell sound asleep.