The Wind Doesn't Talk Back

The "L" Words (Love and Loneliness)

Avery woke up early in the morning. He laid in his bed for a few minutes, before he heard his father call him. Avery walked out into the kitchen, where his father was standing, fully dressed.

"You coming," His father asked.

Avery walked back to his room and got dressed.

Soon enough, they were back at the Hospital. Avery's dad disappeared into the building, and Avery, after seeing that Ashley was still asleep, went up to the roof.

It didn't take long for Avery to be once again, peeking over the edge, enjoying the rush of being so close to death.

"Avery, I swear if that's the thing that kills you," Her voice made Avery jump.

"You might be if you keep doing that."

Emory was standing behind him.

"I can't stay up here long," Emory told him.

"Neither can I," Avery replied. "How's your brother doing?"

"He's still unconscious. But the doctors... they still say he's getting better, though it's not like anyone can really tell."

"That must be rough," Avery said.

Emory nodded. She walked back to the door.

"I noticed that you left. Good," Emory added before she walked out the door. Avery's phone vibrated from his back pocket. He checked it. He had a message from his friend, a person he hadn't talked to since Ashley was diagnosed. The message was asking him to come to hang out with him.

Avery considered it for a long time and decided that he wouldn't go. He wasn't sure if his friend knew about Ashley. He found himself on the roof even though it was raining. Emory wasn't up there.

Avery missed his old life desperately. He wanted to go back to when he was happy, when he went to school and talked to people and played sports. He wanted to be himself again, but he couldn't because there was always the threat of everything being taken from him, of course, that had been when his mother was sick, but that threat had come back to him too quickly.

He found himself looking over the edge, just for a few seconds. The rain beat against his face and soaked through his clothes but he didn't care.

What was the point in caring? All it ever brought to him was pain.

He went back inside a few minutes later, looking out a window, impatiently waiting for the rain to stop or for some other thing to happen to bring him out of the emptiness that he'd felt.

Two days that felt more like two weeks passed, but Avery sat in his sister's room as she got sicker and as she continued to fight what was happening to her - as she continued to lose her fight.

Both days, Avery had found himself on the roof, listening to the wind for an answer that wasn't going to come, but hoping the rushes of air might carry some far-off voice that was there to give him hope.

That voice never spoke.

Both days, Emory had appeared with him on the roof and they talked because they felt that, to some level, they understood the feeling of emptiness and the fear of the shadow of death lingering around them; they understood, although it wasn't literal like those around them, each others disease.

Avery and Emory sat on the roof on a day where there was no wind. The world below them seemed unbelievably quiet. The situation was strange. Avery turned to Emory.

"Aaron," he questioned.

"The same. Ashley?"

"The same. What about you?"

"Me?"
"Yeah. We spend all of our time up here talking about them. What about you?"

"Honestly, Avery, I am a nightmare. A mess of untreated and denied anxiety and lots of other things. I'm something you don't need to waste your time learning about."

Avery stared at her for a few seconds.

"I want to know every little thing about you, Emory Steele."

"What?"

"I want to know all about you, because I am in love with you."

At that moment, the world around them stopped, and everything was silent. Emory stared at him. He stared at her. They didn't speak.

They didn't need too.