Remember Us This Way

by Sheridan Anne

“You should have stayed away,” she tells me, her voice filled with the type of venom that somehow darkens my already blackened soul. “I was better off without you.”

She lost half of herself when I walked away, and she never got it back.

every piece of me was calling out to him, desperately needing him to make this right.

Our souls formed an impenetrable bond the day we first met, and since then, it’s only gotten stronger.

I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. Crap, I love him so much.

Don’t go after her. Don’t go after her. Don’t go after her, you fucking idiot. “FUCK!” I go after her.

told you that you were the greatest love of my life,” I tell her, the words so hard to say out loud, but I know I meant every fucking word, maybe I still do. “That I would make you the happiest girl in the world and protect you with my life.”

We’re two halves of the same whole, and no matter how much I try to pull us apart and burn that tether between us, we’ll always be forced back together. It’s inevitable.”

“Just . . . When you finally realize that you deserve to be happy, come back to me.”

I know your heart, the real you, and while you’re hurting and buried deep in this pain, eventually, you’ll be able to overcome it. I just hope that when that time comes, you haven’t pushed her so far away that you’ll never be able to get her back.”

“You’ll never not be what I need,” I promise her. “Then I’ll never stop fighting for you.”

“Gee, Noah. Thanks for the offer,”

“But I don’t think my wife would be down with me taking on a boy toy right now. I’ll take the consolation prize of getting your asses to class though.”

“College and football doesn’t fucking matter to me, Zoey. You do. If you need me here, then I’ll be here, every fucking second of every fucking day. I’m not going anywhere. Nothing is more important than this,”

“They’re barely holding on. Every time Mom looks at me, she crumbles, and Dad . . . He thinks he’s being strong for all of us, but I hear him crying at night when he thinks everyone is asleep.”

She takes one look at me then takes in the needle currently sticking out of my arm, the machines, and the room filled with flowers and get-well-soon cards made by the other kids on the ward who wanted to make me feel welcome. I expect her to yell at me, scream or cry, but she just gapes and holds up the grocery bags. “I bought snacks.”

I don’t knock, don’t stop to check who’s home, simply bring my foot up and kick down the fucking door, breaking right through the lock.

After I’m gone, when you think about us and how we were together, I want you to remember us this way. Not the pain of losing me or the long days in that treatment center. I want you to remember these moments that were so unbelievably perfect that you took my breath away and left me feeling so overwhelmingly in love with you.” She holds my gaze, pausing for just a moment. “Promise me, Noah. Promise me you’ll remember us this way.”

“You have to understand, Zo, I never planned on you being a memory. When you’re gone, and I have to say goodbye, it’s going to destroy me. I don’t know how I’m going to survive it, but I promise, when the time comes that I’m able to think back and remember our life together, when just the mention of your name doesn’t tear me to shreds, I’ll remember us just like this.”

Our souls were entwined together, permanently connected as one, and I knew every step we took in life would be done as one.

And when my time finally comes, and I see you in heaven, I’m going to run right into your arms and hold you while you tell me all about the grand adventures you’ve been having.”

I want to drown in this moment and feel it lift me right into the sky.

“You were never supposed to be one of the many stars. You’re the whole damn sun.”

“He’s going to watch over you until I get there, but just know that when I do, I’m going to run to you, Zo. I’m going to run so fucking fast, right back into your arms, and we’ll be together, just as we were always meant to be.”

With that, Zoey Ryan, the love of my life, my bestest friend, slips away, and that invisible tether that’s existed since the moment I first met her is severed, and everything in my world just . . . stops.

I’ll be the sun in his sky, and every night when he’s looking up at the stars, watching as they twinkle against the night sky, he’ll know that’s me, shining just for him.