Amidst Crimson Kisses

Chapter Two: Underwater Calypso

Asher's POV

The last rays of amber glisten above the sea as my eyes submerge into still darkness. The aroma of salt and debris begin to lather the air, a cacophony of voices looming over me as metal scrapes the floor. One last labored breath escapes my lips as waves crash against the shore. The heart monitor flatlines as crushed rock crumbles underneath my feet. I watch the shoreline fade into obscurity, despite the bitter taste of iron that washes away with the tide.

Grains of sand trace the pier as rose petals with a hint of honey invade the atmosphere. A fragrance I have forgotten all too well, but my soul deciphers the emotions hidden behind every single drop of La Beauté De l'Existence. Juliet wore it like the crystal that adorned her finger, and it clung to her like the crimson painted on her lips. Then similar to my spirit, it lingered as I waited for her, overlooking the same cryptic waves. At that moment, a stream of sapphire surges through the ocean, intertwining my lost memories with ruin.

"You see how the ocean glows in the moonlight?" Juliet said, looking over the pier.

"What?" I smile. "Another biology lesson."

She rolls her eyes. "It reminds me of us because even though it's in danger, it's still beautiful."

The way Juliet's gaze bored into the water just drove me insane; only an act of nature could arouse her attention. I'm lost in Juliet's cornflower eyes and how they danced as if God himself breathed the horizon into them. I look back on our last moments where her bitter demise laid miles and miles above my own. Hard questions begin to form like a bulge in my Adam's Apple as her fate echos through the chambers of my spirit.

When she died, was she in pain? Did her eyes roll to the back of her head? Did her lips fade into blue? Did she die trying to save me? Was she crying out for me?

Before I can even grasp a single thought, the monitor beeps slowly as every trace of Juliet starts to vanish. I fall to my knees and burn holes into the ocean until Juliet's reflection appears with a glare. I catch myself gazing at her face down in the water. Suddenly, my body went numb, and my feet lowered. Then before I lost consciousness, I watched the same siren I imagined dragging me to the depths of the sea desperately raise me to the surface.

I try to memorize every single dimple and curve the ocean alludes. I feel connected to both of them like we did more than die together. Although it still haunts me because, amidst a vast space, I don't understand how I forget the crimson as it encompassed her in the water. I can't apprehend how she could've bled to death while I only drowned. I step back, listening to the violent waves as the water starts to recede, and a gentle voice expels with the wind. "Remember me," she whispers, "as I am."

The tide rises and falls like the breath I took born of detriment. I stand at the edge of the pier, watching our worlds collide and then bitterly unfold in a different timeline. I remember how Juliet always made such a perfect statement whenever she danced as if the entire cosmo was gazing at her ballet. A few years of enchantment hardly makes up for a lifetime underneath the same bridge we once fell in love under and where we almost died together. It's ironic how things come together for a brief spell, only to be destroyed.

I never envisioned choosing to breathe water into my lungs. Nor can I imagine the degree of my understanding at that second in time. I don't know if I had anything figured out or if I was just a drifter living wherever the world existed. Honestly, it kills me that I can never imagine the splendor in Juliet's smile the first day we met at Rosewood Academy. All I'm sure of is I'll never stop dying for Juliet Gianna Goulding, and without her, everything is in vain.

The glimmer of the ocean disappears as my past plays before me. My hands are wrapped around Juliet's waist as she smiles brightly with content. Suddenly, I'm dragged to the bottom of the sea, wrestling the tide and the longing of suppressed memories. I desperately swim through the current, sinking further into the ocean as soft cries begin to surface inside my mind.