Stand By Me

You can tell everybody this is your song

The mothers decided to stay the night, despite Liron's impeccable scheming. They took our rooms, and Liron and I were on the couch. Liron seemed to placate them somewhat, by telling them the things he wanted to do, and how we could all go together.

It was a bittersweet thing, to really treasure life. Liron's song was a wake up call. 

They spent the majority of the evening in Liron's studio, looking through the art he'd made since they last saw him. I decided to steal away and have a quiet moment for myself.

I climbed through the window onto the balcony, where a pack of cigarettes were always waiting. I grabbed one, and lit it up, staring out over the nighttime city.

This was perhaps the first moment of clarity I had since Liron broke the news to me. It felt like I've been in a chaotic ocean, swimming against the riptide, being pushed over and under and unable to catch my breath. For the first time, I could breathe. 

My emotions were calm - almost non-existent. For the first time, I was floating on a calm sea, the dark waters beneath me still threatened to swallow me and pull me under, but, just for a moment, I was floating under the moon and the stars. The world was quiet. The storm was silent. The hurricanes were sleeping. No angels were weeping for me.

It was an epiphany, to compare that moment to the moments which made my life in the past few weeks. I hadn't been eating, I realised. I hadn't bathed or shaved properly. I had slept only as much as Liron had.

With Liron dying, I was dying too, but I didn't blame him. How does one half of a soul live when the other must die? That's a shell of a soul - a carcass.

"Didn't know you smoked," Sadie said, climbing through the window.

"I don't," I said softly. "Want one?" I held the pack up to her, and she took one. 

She lit her cigarette and came to stand by me. For a moment, we watched the city in silence. We were floating on the sea, under the moon and the stars. "How are you doing, Maddock? I know it's not easy for either of you, but you need support as much as he does."

I shook my head. "No, Liron is very scared. He needs it most."

"Aren't you scared too?"

I turned to look at her. The smoke was drifting into the night, and her eyes were red. She had a point. She breathed another cloud of grey, and then said, "I'm a little bit smarter than you, Maddy. I've lived through this before. It's a lesson I had to learn the hard way, and I don't want you to go through that. I still love you very much. I don't want to see you go through the pain I've gone through if I know we could have helped a bit."

The cynic in me scoffed. "How can this possibly be better?"

Sadie sighed, and put her arm around me. "I know that you're struggling. You've never in your life felt a hope that hurt you so much. It doesn't even make sense, does it? How can a beautiful thing like hope bring so much pain? And it's scary, because, at the same time, you're feeling hopeless, helpless."

I felt that rock around my heart starting to crack. Sadie was putting words to emotions I couldn't express. I lit another cigarette.

She continued. "It's not easy to hold on so tightly to something you love while letting it go at the same time. Perhaps it's not as complicated as it is for Liron - he knows he doesn't have to deal with the grief after... But I spoke to him. He's not grieving because he's dying. He's grieving because he knows how much he's hurting you, but he doesn't want to let you go either."

That rock cracked open. Sadie was telling me that I was the one hurting my best friend. We were hurting each other. "What should I do then? Leave him?"

"No, baby. That won't fix things. I know they say that if you love something, let it go, but that's not true. The best you can do is spend time together, live the rest of your lives together. Go places, go enjoy what you have before it's gone. When my husband died, I tried to cut off all the feelings, but I have so many regrets.

"I wish I spent every waking moment with him. I wish we did the things we loved. All I have from his last days are memories of pain and suffering. I wish I could say that we were happy in those last moments. That I remember his smile, the light in his eyes. Listen to me. Now is the time to live. Go explore the world. Go waste your money. Go get arrested again."

I laughed. "Are you Natasha in disguise?"

Sadie chuckled too. "Oh my, I do sound kind of reckless. Don't let her know that I've joined the dark side. She'll never let this go." She crushed her cigarette in the ashtray. "Just take my advice, Maddock. You and Liron get to decide if your time together will be spent in fear and sorrow, or hope and joy. It will be sad, but it will be worth it."

She held out her hand for me. "Just promise me that you'll invite the mama bears along on some of your trips, okay?"

I took her hand, and pulled her into a hug. "I promise." Because mortal promises mean the world.