❛we don't even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.❜
⋆ ✧ ⋆
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THE soul of James Carstairs was broken beyond any imaginable reparation.
His usually strong and muscular shoulders were sagged – resembling those which belonged to a malnourished child. It almost seemed as if the weight of the entire world was dropped upon them – tearing him down and tormenting his mind beyond any known limits.
While Jem had been struggling with his so-called disease and knew that most of the time his illness had caused his most unappealing physical appearance, he knew deep down that this time – it had taken no part in it. His illness was not responsible for the way he looked. It was entirely his own fault.
His skin was paler than ever. Even if it had been dark outside, that would have been the first thing a person would have noticed on him. The snow-white tone of his skin which was accompanied by his silver hair and eyes stood out as the moonlight shone through the clouds and onto him. He couldn't help himself but wonder if someone reached out, would they only graze the air – almost as if he were nothing but a ghost.
He was wearing a well-known mask of coping, hoping that the world wouldn't notice. He wished that he would no longer wear it – to no longer hide his true feelings – but in the end, if he decided to do just that – he would have died. Not his body - which was still standing tall and slender on the edge of the Blackfriars bridge - but his mind. His heart. He would die.
The weight his heart carried was too heavy for him to bear, but he was aware that love and sorrow came together. First, there was love which came sweet and strong – uninvited, but more than welcome. Second came the sorrow that they shall never be together in this life.
Never was an awfully long time and Jem could only pray that it passed quicker. He prayed to be reunited with her in the next life; he begged God – death even – to see them as fit enough and give them a little bit more of the precious time they had gifted to everyone on this Earth.
But death wasn't kind. Jem knew that well enough. After all, he had met it for the first time at a very young age.
Not long after he had turned twelve, the Greater Demon Yanluo – in retaliation for the destruction of his nest – killed his parents, taking away everything young James Carstairs loved.
Though he had been tortured and poisoned by Yanluo himself – sentenced to spend a life addicted to a drug which had often made him delirious – that had been the last one of his problems. He had to cope with the pain the loss of his family had brought along.
James Carstairs loved his father and mother very much, but no one told him at such a young age that with love also comes the pain.
Often, he couldn't help but try to reminiscence on the sweet, but ever so short memories of Jonah – his father – and Ke Wen Yu – his mother. But when he reached out for the precious moments, there was nothing but a thick veil of darkness and what came after the day they died.
He remembered well all the sleepless nights that came after their passing; the ones that introduced him to the world of suffering and numbness. He remembered small moments where he would find himself short of air, his nails clawing at his neck at the lack of oxygen. It descended his mind in panic, in desperation and fear that he would cease to exist because of such a stupid thing as a single memory. He remembered the mist that appeared before his silver orbs; the veil that surrounded him so that he could not make out a single thing before him. He remembered his hands reaching out for anything familiar, but finding nothing. His heart was beating hard against his rib cage, each second passing slower than the one before. He thought that he was going to die. He tried time and time again to move, breathe against the force that was preventing him from doing so, but nothing happened.
Now, years later, that feeling had been threatening to resurface. It had announced its wish to terrorize him again. And that's how Jem knew that death had visited him for the second time – at the age of seventeen.
Oh, if only she hadn't died.
Will Herondale, his parabatai, told him on multiple occasions that he should stop caring, that he should just turn down his emotions and become cold to the world. And though it had worked well for William, Jem didn't like the idea as much.
Perhaps his neglect of Will's advice was the reason he felt this way now.
He knew that everyone had been born a mortal. Their lives consisted of three parts – living, aging and when the time comes – dying. But when his time to lose Beatrice Fairchild came, he wished to be lost with her. He wished that he could take a step into the unknown as he held her hand tightly in his own.
He hated the people that reached out to him at that time. He hated their pathetic excuses of trying to help him as Beatrice's spirit departed from this world.
The reason for his cruel treatment was simple. James Carstairs was aware that this grieving will never really end. He wanted to dedicate the rest of his short life to Beatrice's memory and spend each night alone, for he knew that he would never find a love as sweet as the one she had for him and he returned more than gladly.
He only realized that night, as he stood on the bridge that they used to come together, that everything he had treasured and deeply and fiercely loved was nothing but a memory now. A simple shadow that lingered in the depth of his heart.
It was a strange thing to lose something you once held dearly in your arms, almost like a limb was being ripped from your body without a chance to save it.
She had left him and he was alone.
Once again, James Carstairs wanted to fight death for not being fair and kind. He resented it for snatching wherever its hands could reach; for taking people that were far too young and far too innocent for this world. It just didn't care. It took and took and took until there was nothing left for it to take.
Once again, James Carstairs was sentenced to mourning instead of celebrating, as Beatrice would have wanted. Only James knew how many times she had told him that instead of remembering the terrible things, he should reminiscence on the good ones. He remembered her telling him that he should always count the times their souls smiled together and reached out for the other one invisibly, yearning for them to touch.
Death is only the end of a chapter, my friend. Beatrice's words rang so loudly in his ears, despite her not being next to him. She would have known how to deal with the pain.
My friend. Such a pathetic nickname, but it was one that he will never cease to miss.
Jem was aware that she was watching over him and would live forever in the fragile heart of his. Though her death brought him an immense amount of sorrow, he knew that it was the time for him to accept it – for he still had a life to live, even after her death. It was what he promised her, after all.
Promise me that if one of us dies someday, the other will carry on with a smile on their face. Proud and tall, for the world to see.
And though there was no one outside as the midnight sky overlooked the river that passed underneath the Blackfriars bridge that night, James Carstairs gathered every ounce of strength his body carried and lifted his chin up – with a smile engraved on his face – even if no one was there to watch.
