Blanket Of Stars | jensoo

empty corridors

Have you ever been looking through old photo albums and noticed the strangers in the background? How sometimes they're looking away, or sometimes they're looking directly at the camera, frozen in time. I always used to wonder who they were, what their names were, if they'd ever been in love, and if their life story would be epic or average. Then I used to try to figure out what kind of life story I wanted to have, and which one would actually be better; the life of a famous rockstar, or the average yet overwhelming life most people live. The life I lived.

I think you just have to ask yourself what you define as epic, and is anything in this world really average? I don't think so. I think everything and everyone has the potential to be epic. It's just a matter of whether or not that potential is recognised and used. I'm willing to bet that if you asked a person who was in the magazines every week with camera's following them and capturing their every move, they would switch with your ordinarily beautiful life in a heartbeat.

A lot of people are never really happy with what they have, even down to the smallest detail of what type of hair they have.

They say that the suicide rate goes up near to the holidays. All of those people who want to die, to put an end to whatever is too much for them to take, I don't think they realise I would do anything to be in their position. To have my heart beat again.

Shortly after I died, I used to sit in my room, my room that was empty but I never saw that it was empty—I didn't want to see—and I held my breath. I would sit there for hours at a time holding my breath trying to feel if my heart so much as twitched. It never did. I know it's still there because I feel it seize, and I feel it fill so much it could burst. I just don't feel it beat.

I've almost forgotten how it feels to have it pounding against my ribs. I've almost forgotten how a heartbeat sounds.

It didn't snow a few days ago when it looked like it was going to, it was just cold. It must have been freezing because even in bed I noticed Jennie had goosebumps on her arms. Regardless of the low temperature, her eyes looked the direct opposite, they were so warm when they were all over me. I felt my face growing hotter the longer she looked at me in the way she was looking at me.

When I saw that it was getting late I told her to go to sleep and that, as always, I'd be there in the morning. It was the first time in a long time she fell asleep before midnight.

My wrists were still hurting from when she held them to keep me in place against the wall. The only way I could begin to describe it would be to say that it felt like terrible sunburn. The skin felt scalded, tender, and stinging almost as if blistered. It faded at some point during the night when Jennie was dreaming her dreams.

Neither of her parents came back home that night, but I heard her father sneak back in the house around eight the next morning. Mrs. Kim wasn't far behind. I'm not sure if they were out somewhere talking about their marriage and trying to come up with solutions to fix it, or if they were both out with different people.

Both scenarios made me want to reach for Jennie limp and sleepy hand, but I didn't, I couldn't. I knew it would hurt too much to have to let go.

Today we've decided to go for a walk. I like walking with Jennie because in this weather I can smell her perfume through what I'm sure is the bitter wind. I'm wearing a scarf for her today. I'm not cold but when I saw her putting god knows how many layers on to leave the house, I asked her to pass me a scarf. The smile she gave me in return was enough to keep me in a good mood for the rest of the week.

She curses when the wind picks up and I watch as she pushes her gloved hands further into her pockets.

"Are we a little cold?" I tease, not bothering to hide a smirk.