Before

This Is Not Goodbye

  I didn't have the strength to do so. I couldn't say it, I couldn't tell him, "you're leaving I heard."
Spitting the hot liquid onto the floor, Stone laughed. "The person I saw crying,"
Taking a bite out of a biscuit, he chewed.
"It was you."
"H-how was it me? I was here I wa-,"
"It was you.
I thought, that maybe if I... find a cure for your fever that you'd get better, that you'd stay.
But you told me it wouldn't, that your world is a time after mine, a world where I don't exist, and that there...we've never even met.
I must admit I thought I had gone insane, but it all made sense to me Grant Everly."
I stared at Stone in a daze, I didn't even make the effort anymore. My eyes just seemed to blind themselves with never ending tears.
He was tearing me apart unknowingly, and I just so desperately wanted him to stop. I wanted him to just keep his silence only for just a moment.
"I know you were dreading this. This is what it was, Grant, my love.
This isn't me saying goodbye."
"This is not...goodbye my love."
He spoke with a sense of clarity that was welcoming, enticing almost. His eyes were happy, and his smile was genuine, "I will see you again, as you will see me. But we cannot do that unless you get back home, your friends, and your family need you. You...you...need you."
Rising to my feet I circled around him slowly, Stone did the same, I was angry. He saw it, he could feel it. "I don't want to go. I want to stay here!"
"No." Setting his coat onto the floor he stormed over to me. His soft raging anger, eased with a clench of the jaw. As he just stared for a moment.
"You may not stay, but you must go back, you must save yourself. There will be a future Grant Everly, and I'll keep it safely in my heart that maybe one day you'll be in mine.
So if it'll help you sleep, and push you on everyday, keep it in yours too. You can kill a believer, but their dreams remain, their hope does not die in vain Grant. You must live, because you were able to do so before you met me.
There may have been a me, before you. But here, I was nothing, you gave me something, and together you made me everything. Everything I had hoped to be as a child, and I thank you, and I will miss you.
Because, what is time, when there is you?
What is time to me, when I have the love of a girl, that is in a world beyond mine, and I love her.
Love beats time Grant, there is no time marked in forever. It does not belong, and it will not keep our souls apart.
Shh...shh.. my love, do not cry tears of sadness. It'll only break my heart deeper. But look at me, look at me Grant Everly.
Promise me one thing, one thing when you get back home.
When we meet again,
Marry me."
Laughing, Stone placed his warm hands on my cheeks. To wipe away the tears that flooded and destroyed my flesh. I attempted to see his eyes, though my vision was blurred I could see him.
And he cried with me, he cried his tears, and pulled me into an embrace, "Please don't let me go."
"My love, I must. I must do this. Now go, go back home Grant Everly.
I will see you soon. That I promise, and I always keep my promises."
Squeezing me tightly I just rested my head against his shoulder tiredly. But his voice became a hoarse whisper. I knew his chest burned, because mine was up in flames also. Gripping him tighter, he pulled me away, catching my gaze with his ocean of grief he smiled again.
Forcing mine he laughed, "Oh stop it," laying his hands on my head, I rested my shaking palms on his forearms. Standing there for a moment in silence, I soon became a bit more calm. Our noses touching, and our foreheads meshed together, while our lips soon became one.
And that's when I woke up.
And that's when I realized, I was in a world without Stone.
And, then I felt it. What my cousin felt that time ago.
I felt my heart literally crack into two, it was all over.
"Grant, honey! Grant is awake!"
I could hear my mother racing into the room, tear stained rosy cheeks. She smiled as she wept on my shoulder. "Oh my baby girl, my baby. How do you feel?"
And I couldn't speak, all I could do was let out a loud cry of a battered defeat.
"It's okay baby, you're home now!"
The first week was dreadful. The second, gruesomely terrible, and the third, just as worse as the last.

And then two months passed. And so did three.

I had to physically force myself to live, to crawl out of my bed, and continue on like nothing happened. Because to everyone surrounding me, strongly believes I ran away. And hit my head, falling into a coma for all of that time.

What hurts me the most is that I still have every memory, and I'm so conflicted. Whether to appreciate it as a curse or a blessing.

Every time I close my eyes it's a memory of new, something that I loved, something I wished for everyday. Something I feel so lost now, now that we are apart.

You promised me we would find each other again.

But I promised too, I found you once Stone, and I will find you again.

"Grant, you gonna eat that?"

Shaking my head solemnly, Joss, just eyed me down.

"Well ya should. I haven't seen you eat in days. You're killing yourself woman. Have some boundaries, get it together!"

I sighed, as I nodded my head to the same tune of Joss's concerning brotherly talks. "You eat it. I don't want this trash. It's disgusting, look at it."

"Its potatoes."

"It's vile. And I'm worried about you actually, how could you eat such an atrocity."

Rolling his glowing eyes, he laughed. "Eh, it's not too bad, it ain't great either no. But it won't make my belly hit my back in hunger."

Handing me his spoon, I reluctantly took it.

"There ya go!"

Throwing it at him in a haste, I ran. And as I hopped over lunch tables, and bumped into fellow classmates, I could feel Joss on my trail.

But then I remembered, and it flashed through my mind like a haunting ghost, freezing me in its cold anger.

Today was Wednesday.

Another Wednesday without you Stone.

How many more will there be? Or is this how it will be for all of my eternity.

Lonely, and lost, as I search, hoping that I will find....you.