A Wish For Us

by Tillie Cole

time of day wasn’t a factor when inspiration hit. Most artistic people were night people.

He was perfect as he told me a story I would never know, yet completely understood.

He wiped at his eyes and tipped back his head. I watched him breathe. I watched him in his silence. I watched in reverie as I let it sink in—Cromwell Dean was the hope I had always dreamed him to be.

A man was canoeing in the distance. I wondered why the hell he was here at night. But then I thought maybe he was like me. Maybe when he closed his eyes, he never got rest. Instead, he only saw the memory of what destroyed him.

My head always went somewhere else when I played. It transformed. Turned to color and shapes. Until I finished, and the world came back into view.

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

The music was beautiful, like the feeling of the sun on your face breaking through the harsh wind of winter and welcoming the spring.

You heard it, I wanted to say to her. No one else has ever heard it, but you did. And you’ve walked away. You’ve let me push you away . . .

Everything was more around her. My senses were so overwhelmed that I almost couldn’t breathe. I saw color and fireworks. Tasted sweetness, smelled her scent, and breathed in who she was. It was lines and shapes and tones and colors, metallic and mattes. It all slammed into me like a flood.

Without taking her eyes off me, Bonnie found my hands that were resting over the guitar and moved them into position. She settled back against my chest. “Please play for me.”

“Cromwell?” I turned. “What’s your favorite? Your favorite color to see?” I didn’t even think before I spoke the words. “Violet blue.”

“You laughed.” A wide smile pulled on her lips. “Cromwell brooder-of-the-century Dean actually laughed.” She closed her eyes, making my heart fucking melt. “And it was bright yellow.” She opened her eyes. “Like the sun.”

“You’ve fought hard, Bonn.” I couldn’t stop my eyes filling with water. “You have too.” Easton gave me a mocking laugh. But I meant it. “Not like you,” he said. He sighed and tapped his head. “I’m convinced that my issues up here are directly linked to your heart.” My stomach fell. “I think when we were created, I was linked to you somehow. When your heart started failing, so did my brain.”

I see the way you look at him.” He sighed, defeated. “And the way he looks at you.” “How?” “Like you’re his air. Like you’re the water to whatever hellfire lives inside him.”

“He brings music to my silent world, East.”

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, those words, and his voice, like a symphony to my ears.

“She made me want to play again.” I smacked my fist over my chest . . . over my still-working heart. “She made me listen to the music inside me again. She made me play. She inspired me . . . She made me me again.” I swallowed the lump that I was sick of feeling. “She can’t die.” All the fight drained from my body. “I love her. She’s my silver.”

When the threat of death hung over you, you realized that your true dreams weren’t so grand. And they all came down to one thing—love. Material possessions and idealistic goals faded away like a dying star. Love was what remained. Life’s purpose was to love.

He was my violet blue. My favorite-ever note.

“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.

My heart shattered.

I found life hard, Bonnie. Every day, when I took a breath, I felt like I was breathing in tar. Every step I took was like walking in quicksand. I had to keep moving or I would be pulled under. I fought it. But the truth was, I wanted to sink.

~ Easton...

“Losing people you love can make the world seem very dark. But I’ve realized that even though they’re gone from us physically, they’re never truly gone.”