Fly With Me

Epilogue: Fly With Me

Brandon Nickson pulls his wallet out of his pocket to pay for his latte, when something flutters slowly out of it. The woman behind him in line stoops to pick it up, and hands it to him after glancing at it briefly. It isn’t anything special, just a photo.

Brandon takes the small slip of paper from the woman with a small smile, picks up his latte and moves to sit down in a booth by a window. After he sets his coffee down, he takes his small laptop out and places it gently down on the table top.

With fond eyes, he gazes down at the photo he had taken of his dear friend, Amanda when she wasn't looking on their impromptu road-trip across America. It wasn’t often that he had seen her truly happy, but these pictures captured her with eyes bright and smile wide as she stared out at the open road ahead of her.

Unconsciously, a smile creeps over Brandon’s face as he recalls his adventures with Amanda. It has only been six months since—at the thought of sitting next to Amanda in the hospital, Nickson’s smile fades quickly.

He feels tears come to his eyes and he tries to stop them, but can’t. The memory is already playing in his mind.

 She lays there, dark brown hair splayed across the pillow like an inky halo. Her already pale skin has turned straight white, and her usually rosy cheeks are devoid of color. Her brilliantly cerulean eyes are fluttering weakly, and he resists the urge to reach out and kiss her pale cheek and tell her that everything is going to be alright.

He would be lying if he said that.

The lung cancer had spread much too quickly, moving from her lungs into her brain and liver. The doctors had considered both surgery and radiation treatments, but at the rate the cancerous cells were reproducing, there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Lying in that hospital bed, the once strong, independent young woman seems fragile. She lifts her thin arm slowly, hesitantly, and waves Brandon over.

He approaches carefully, unsure of what to do.

A faint smile touches Calypso’s lips as she touches Brandon’s face gently. Her hand wanders upwards to  touch the frames of his glasses. With a simple tug, she takes his glasses off and sighs with contentment when she sees his eyes.

“Keep your glasses on,” she whispers, “Your beautiful eyes will be a secret; just between us.”

Brandon smiles a little bit and nods silently, “Our secret.”

Calypso lets her eyes shut as her hand slips off of Brandon’s face. At this point, the young man is fighting tears, “Don’t leave me,” he begs softly, taking her thin hand in his own larger one and holds it tightly.

“I’m not leaving you.” A quiet laugh escapes her paling lips, and for a moment a spasmodic bout of coughs wracks her thin body. “Just think of it as a temporary absence.”

Her voice is approaching inaudibility with each word, and as he watches her weaken, Brandon crumbles. Tears slide freely down his cheeks as he presses Calypso’s hand to his cheek, “Please, don’t leave.”

The woman lying on the bed draws in a deep, shuddering breath and her smile is replaced by a look of fear. “Stay with me.” She says, forcing her blue eyes open to stare at Brandon. “Stay with me…”

“I’ll be by your side until you fall asleep.” He murmurs, his tears dropping onto her pillow.

She nods weakly and closes her eyes once more. There are a few moments of silence, broken only by the wavering beeping of Calypso’s heart monitor. A few more seconds pass.

A flat line appears on the screen accompanied by a long, drawn out beep.

Brandon chokes on a sob as he clutches Calypso’s, now limp, hand tighter. “Goodbye,” he says softly, before pressing his lips to her white forehead.

Shaking himself out of the memory, Brandon wipes the tears away from his eyes and takes a sip from his coffee cup. He opens his laptop and opens up Microsoft Word. The blank white page stares at him, the small black bar flashes.

This image, once daunting, seems trivial now. He has something to write now, and he intends to show it to the world.

At the very top of the screen, in large letters, he types: Fly With Me. Below that, he writes the dedication.

To Amanda Brown,

 My friend, my muse, and my adventure

///

TADAH. Ahaha, I think this is the only part of the entire story I'm actually quite proud of.

Okay.

Bai.