FALLING SLOWLY ||Complete||

Lifeline

As long as you can breathe, you are fine. Coach Park told him that, holding him over the current of a particularly violent stream, he was five, fresh out from what they said was the last of his surgeries and therapy, turning into swimming to strengthen his muscles. And he had been holding to those words ever since. You are fine - as long as you can breathe.

The green - gray water reminded him of that child, of its broken self esteem, the legs he believed were good for nothing. And he remembered being engulfed in the water, how it had overpowered him for a moment and threatened to pull him down - it was then that he realized no matter how much he hated it, his greed to live overpowered his self condemnation. Coach Park had left him a moment longer to struggle, fighting for his life before pulling him back to safety.  

There was a fire in that man’s eyes and he felt its warmth kindle inside him when he placed his hand on his heart, pounding, beating at a painful tempo trying to savor another moment of life, as he coughed out the water and rubbed his eyes.

“Feel your heart, remember its pounding, remember its struggle to live - when there is nothing to fight for - fight for yourself. You are fine as long as you can breathe.”

So wanted to feel that need again. So he dived in, leaving the realities that weighed him down at the shore. The water was icy, cutting against his skin like a blade of frost. When he surfaced, hair plastered to his face and mouth open for a gulp of air, his exhale rose in swirls of mist.

He felt the chill in his bones, in the knots on his muscles, in his veins where blood throbbed. Life - he was as greedy as he had always been. The water did not smell of chlorine and his strokes weren’t as graceful as they had been - he was too cold, too broken for a performance. Yet water brought him what he was seeking for in her embrace; peace.

As long as you can breathe.

But he was not sure, if he could hold it any longer. So went under again, the cool green burned in his eyes, he watched the beams of sunlight as they dissolved in the darkness and reminisced - in spite of himself - of her soft touch. Memories of two lifetimes weighed him down, burned in his lungs. She had always been so, breaking his walls until he was stripped and bear and then leaving without a word of an explanation - in the middle - at the eye of the storm - taking all of him as she went. And he fell at her feet every time , giving her the power to hurt him over and over again, hurt herself leave him to bleed for that was the depth of their connection.

He remembered her words and felt a fresh stab at his heart.

“I thought it changed nothing. That I could take anything. But I cannot. Forgive me.”

It hurt. It hurt like he would die. This was the pain he had tried to shield himself from , each time he pushed her away. But then she had insisted, she had been so sure. It hurt no less to see how desperate she was to get away from him - even after how close they had come.

What hurt him most was that he knew her too much- too well - that he saw the truth in her eyes, he knew it was over even before she had opened her mouth. The chill had settled on him even before he made sense of her words.

It took too much effort to stay afloat, hold her in place and make her face him.

‘Why?” It was all he could ask, the rest of his words never formed properly, never left the tip of his tongue. He had let her go so freely and she had circled back to him. Now that he wanted - needed - her to stay, she was pulling away from his embrace. “Is it me? Do you - you said it didn’t matter.” His words broke, his tone unsure. A lone tear dangled from her lashes. She didn’t say anything and her thumb stroked his cheek. He borrowed into her touch, willing to believe everything was another feverish nightmare. Hoping that she would admit into lying the next moment. She still didn’t utter a word.