Natalie

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

The school year had ended and everyone was on their way home to their families, aside from the people like me whose families had sold them to the school, and that meant that Natalie was leaving, too. She had business to take care of, tours to go on, songs to record, albums to make. She promised that she’d be back the next year so that we could graduate and start our lives together, but she had to leave for the summer.

“I’ll be back before you even get a chance to miss me,” she smiled, hugging me with her arms wrapped around my neck.

“You’re lying. As soon as you get in that car, I’ll already be missing you,” I smirked wryly and kissed her.

“I love you, Ruka. I’ll call every day and write letters to you when I have time to sit down, but you’ll always be on my mind and in my heart.”

She hadn’t lied about that. She called every day and we talked for hours, even when she hadn’t slept in ages and could have been asleep, and I got letters from her at least once a week, all of which were no less than three pages long. It was like nothing had changed at all, despite us being on opposite sides of the earth. It continued like that for about seven weeks, but it all stopped almost exactly a week before the next school year was supposed to start. There had been an unseasonal storm, but I didn’t think much of it. I was too preoccupied with questioning what could have happened to suddenly stop our routine until I walked past Akira and Akane sitting in the lobby area of the dorm hall playing shougi, and Machi and Chika sitting on a couch, chatting and the T.V. channel was turned to the news.

There was an American woman sitting at a desk with her hands folded and placed neatly on top of a stack of papers and on the right side of the screen there was a picture of flaming wreckage. She was speaking in English, so I couldn’t understand much of what she was saying, but I did hear the word “Dallas,” so I told Akira to change the channel to the Japanese news. The news reporter had the same picture on the left side of the screen and she was giving the story.

“At six o’clock this morning, a private plane crashed down about eighty one kilometers north of Phoenix, Arizona due to engine failure. The plane had been on the first leg of its journey, set to land in Las Angeles, California before completing its journey in Tokyo, Japan. Aboard the plane was newest international pop-rock sensation, Nana and her manager, Jonathan Christianson. The pilot and co-pilot, trying to land the plane as safely as they could, lost control. They died on impact, but Nana and Christianson were pulled from the wreckage by a man and his son who’d caught the whole scene on tape. Nana and Christianson were rushed to the nearest hospital, both in critical condition, but it breaks my heart to say that neither of them made it—”

My heart dropped and I couldn’t move. Everything had gone wrong. Nothing made sense. Everything sounded like I was listening from underwater, but the reporter’s words rang loud and clear, repeating themselves over and over again like the tolling of funeral bells as I stared at the picture of a laughing Natalie on the screen next to the reporter.

Neither of them made it… Neither of them made it… Neither made it… Didn’t make it… Nana didn’t make it… Natalie didn’t make it…

Akira walked somberly over to me, putting her hand on my shoulder and apologizing and Machi and Chika were crying. I shrugged Akira off and went to my room, picking up my phone and dialing Natalie’s cell number. She couldn’t have died. She couldn’t have been gone. She couldn’t have left me. The phone rang and rang and ended with Natalie’s voice saying something in English and then stopping before a beep. I called again and again, the same thing happening every time. I threw my cell against the wall, shattering it, and I stormed out of my room, past everyone in the lobby and out the back door of the dorm hall into the rain. Chika and Machi called after me, but Akira and Akane held them back. Someone ran out the door behind me, but they weren’t chasing me. I stumbled past the maple and behind the cafeteria straight through the forest to the river, my vision getting more and more blurred.

I wanted the rain to wash everything away. I wanted it to wash me—everything about me— away, leaving me as a doll without a heart, a brain, emotions. I wanted to be left with absolutely nothing. Anything left would poison me. It would kill me from the inside out. I didn’t want to feel anything. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. It wasn’t supposed to happen again. Not with her. I wasn’t supposed to be left alone. She’d promised that she’d be back.

I kept stumbling through the forest, following the river upstream and not caring or noticing that I was being drenched to the bone. I just felt a numbness seeping into me and the number I felt, the more I hurt. I could feel her in the rain—her sorrow, her loneliness, her love, her apology. It wasn’t a storm that I was walking through. It was her tears and the tears of the world. Everything was crying, but I wouldn’t let myself cry. I wasn’t sad or depressed, I was irate.

Why did she have to leave? Why did the shinigami want her now? Why couldn’t he have waited until she was old and taken her peacefully in her sleep? Why hadn’t he taken me instead? It wasn’t like anybody really cared about me. My family had sold me to the school. Everybody would have gone on with their lives, even if mine hadn’t. I would have been forgotten eventually. Natalie couldn’t have. She was the world. How could anyone forget her? How could she not be immortal? Without her, I was nothing. I had no reason to still be alive, but I was. I hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye to her or show her how much I loved her.

I’d reached the clearing that I’d taken her to and I felt her presence there stronger than ever. Her spirit was there in the dying flowers and grass, surrounded by the soon-to-turn-color-and-die trees. I collapsed to my knees and screamed out so loud that it would have been amazing if nobody had heard me. I cursed the shinigami, praying for him to give her back to me, and I felt her wrapping her arms around me to comfort me as the rain came down harder. I screamed myself hoarse and crumpled to the ground, exhausted and entirely spent of energy, silent tears streaming from the corners of my eyes and mixing with the rain. I didn’t feel anything physically, but I felt Natalie’s spirit there with me, holding my hand and keeping me awake. I could see her lying next to me and smiling sadly at me while I stared back at her, my eyes vacant.

“Please… don’t leave me…” I croaked through the burning lump lodged in my throat, and her expression turned into something that I couldn’t quite comprehend. She kissed me, she disappeared, the rain let up and I couldn’t feel her anymore. She was really gone, and I was left alone again. I closed my eyes and waited for the shinigami to come for me, too.

I heard a sigh and squinted through the rain, looking up at the dark figure standing over me.

“Don't give up, Ruka… You can always come to me. You know that… even if all you need is one night…”

My eyelids were too heavy and gravity slowly took hold of them as the shinigami took me in his arms and carried me off into the darkness.