How It Went Down

by Kekla Magoon

He doesn’t fit anywhere in the photo album of my life up until now, barely even a blur in the background or on the fringe of some forgotten frame. There’s just this one thing that binds us. I was leaning over him when he died. My hands on his chest. My palms felt his last breath move inside him. His chest rose and fell and then kept falling, like it could carry us both straight down through the earth. I didn’t stop pushing, but I knew. Right then. I was breathing hard myself. My lungs probably took in the last air Tariq ever exhaled. It can’t possibly be in me anymore, but it feels like it is. Like it’s weighing heavy on my chest with every breath I take, even now. That’s it. That’s all we have. No other memories. No previous touch to cover up the feel of his hand against my arm, lightly clutching. No long-ago look to take the place of the desperate glance we shared, or the hollow stare from his dark, empty eyes an instant later. My lips never so much as brushed his cheek before. Nothing to eclipse the kiss I refused to give him that would have been his last … or could have saved him. His breath is in my chest, still now, and I never even tried to give it back to him.