A Wish for Us

by Tillie Cole

I wasn’t used to smiling people. Never knew why people had reason to smile so much.

But for some reason Bonnie Farraday sparked life back into my dead soul.

I’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

Her voice was violet blue. I closed my eyes. It was my favorite color to hear.

Her laughter was pale pink.

“Manners cost nothing, son. Always be gracious with those who want to help.”

It wasn’t sitting well that she didn’t like me. Because I was quickly realizing I kind of liked her.

It was hard to dislike a person when you knew they were in pain.

There was one thing I was sure my heart couldn’t take, and that was Cromwell Dean being sweet to me. I wasn’t equipped for the kind of emotion it elicited.

Cromwell Dean was so beautiful.

can’t do this, Bonnie,” he whispered, voice hoarse and accent thick. His cheeks were still flooded, his eyes red. “I can’t face it all. I can’t deal with what you’re making me feel. When you’re near me. When you touch me.” His face contorted and he sucked in a tight breath. “I can’t cope with all the pain.”

Bonnie had heard it. No one ever had but me.

She was getting too close. And something happened to me when I was around her. My defenses fell. I couldn’t let them fall.

Bonnie Farraday was cemented into my brain.

I shifted in my seat when it hit me that I thought she looked beautiful.

My jaw was clenched when I pulled away. Bonnie’s eyes were wide on mine, and I knew why I’d hesitated. I hadn’t wanted to let her go.

“You can’t fight the colors you were born to see.”

Violet blue. His favorite color to see…and also the sound of my voice.

If my failing heart hadn’t let him in before, it did just then.

“Farraday.” I inched closer and pressed my forehead to hers. “If you don’t want me to take your mouth right now, I’d stop looking at me like that.”

“Like you want to feel my tongue ring in your mouth again.”

Something settled in my chest that I hadn’t felt in years. Something I never thought I’d find ever again. Silver. I choked at the sight. Happiness.

I’d never put lyrics to my mixes before. Never felt the need…until her.

So I kept going, my teeth gritted together at how good it felt. At how good she felt beneath me. But not because I was inside her. Because it was her, looking up at me like this. Brown eyes watering and lips shaking. Wanting me. Needing me. She was my silver.

It was the first time in a long time that I fell asleep with a smile on my lips.

“Cromwell, my heart is literally broken.” Her wet lashes left marks on the top of her cheeks as she closed her eyes. “I have heart failure, Cromwell.” She smiled sadly. Devastatingly. “My heart is dying.”

“I should never have let it get that far. But even though it is failing, losing strength, my heart latched itself to yours, and I had to know what it was like. To be with you.” She sniffed and a tear fell. “You made me feel so cherished.”

“No, he’s not.” She bumped my arm. “But the way he was fighting for you, didn’t want to leave you, tells me everything I need to know. Obstacles in life sometimes make you look at the world in ways you never did before.” “And what did it tell you?” “That he’s fallen for you.”

Holding Bonnie was more important than anything right now.

couldn’t take my eyes off her face. It was as if ever since I found about her heart, I couldn’t stop noticing just how beautiful she was.

“I want to play again.”

want to play because of you.”

Because Bonnie Farraday was perfect. Perfection with an imperfect heart.

“Like you’re his air. Like you’re the water to whatever hellfire lives inside him.”

Because she had to survive. I couldn’t take another loss. But the loss of what could be, that was what scared me most. Because I was sure we could be something special. She just had to survive.

When I entered Bonnie’s room, it didn’t matter to me that she was lying on the bed, a plastic tube flowing oxygen into her body through her nose; she was still the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.

Bonnie was dying, and there was fuck all we could do.

She reminded me of my dad in those moments. Another person I loved who believed in me so much. Whose greatest joy in life was listening to me play. The loss I felt in these moments was extreme.

Because if my dad had met Bonnie…he would have loved her.

And she would have l...

“I am fighting. I will keep on fighting…But if I have to, I can go…knowing how this felt.” She stroked my face, ran her finger over my lips. “What it felt like to love you. To know you…to hear your soul through your music.”

When the threat of death hangs over you, you realize that your true dreams aren’t so grand. And they all come down to one thing—love. Material possessions and idealistic goals fade away like a dying star. Love is what remains. Life’s purpose is to love.

I stood there, watching the girl who had brought back my heart fight to save hers.

I believed that when someone is so imbedded in your heart, your soul, they never truly leave.

“You…Cromwell…there’s not a part of us that I regret. Not the beginning…not the middle…and certainly not the end…”

I fell asleep like that, waking in his arms too. And I decided it was how I wanted to say goodbye, how I wanted it to be when the day finally came. Because it was perfect. He was perfect. Like this, life was perfect. And it was how heaven would finally greet me.

“He’ll be with you soon,” her mum told her, and I closed my eyes. Because he would be with her soon. More than she knew.

One twin died so one would survive. My best friend, gone. The girl who held my heart, fighting for her life. And me, helpless to do anything to fix it.

Some are not meant for this life for too long… Angels they come, it’s time to go… No longer caged, now wings of a dove… Tears in my eyes, I give one last glance… I lived, and I loved, and danced life’s sweet dance…

“What color do you see around his grave?” Cromwell exhaled. “White,” he said. “I see white.” “And what does that mean to you?” My voice was barely a whisper. “Peace,” he said, a relieved calm to his voice. “I see it as peace.”