The Five

by Lily White

She was the type of girl men would want without knowing why. A siren, her presence so natural and unapologetic that it brought one purpose to mind.

“Rowan, you have a girlfriend.” Untying the straps of my halter, he answered, “A minor inconvenience that I can correct as soon as you tell me you’re mine.”

“I’ll always come find you, Rainey.” “Promise?” “Promise.”

“Yeah, Rainey, you are. You’ve always been worth it. One day you’ll see yourself the same way I do, and you’ll be so mad at yourself for letting people treat you the way you have. It ends. Tonight.”

“You and me forever. Do you understand that? Fuck everybody else. They don’t matter. They never did. Just you and me, okay?”

tears welling in my eyes once again because I knew I was lying to him when I promised, “Forever.”

Just close your eyes, Rainey. Pretend that you haven’t ripped my heart from my chest and crushed it between your fingers. That’s what you always do.”

Somehow he managed to blend in while remaining separate, like a butterfly mingling among moths; more beautiful, more powerful, yet somehow still more delicate.

I liked to think when they spread her ashes, some of them escaped into the wind, that bits and pieces of her reached the sky, tore through the atmosphere to settle amongst the stars.

People shouldn’t die alone. They should be surrounded by family and loved ones, they should be held and reminded that their lives had meaning. The universe is rarely so kind.

It didn’t matter to me because I was still breathing. I was still marching on despite knowing there wasn’t a light at the end of my tunnel. I continued forward even if the entire time I was blind.

“You can touch me, Rowan. You can touch me forever as long as you swear to me you’ll never stop.”

I thought of all the tragic love stories in the world where one person is gone while the other dies slowly. Your heart can beat on. Your lungs will continue to inflate, but when the person you love the most is gone, the truth is that you die right there beside them.

To love her is a given, but to protect her, I needed to do the one thing she couldn’t do herself.

But it’s not about how much she loved me that mattered. It’s about how much I loved her. How much she didn’t love herself. I loved her enough for the both of us. And that love was enough for me to move Heaven and Earth to save Rainey from herself.

“Because then the story ends with a happily ever after, which means Rainey and I need to ride off into the sunset. I only have two seats on the bike and we ditched your car a while ago. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to bring you along for the ride.”

To love another person is to slip beneath their skin. If they hurt, so do you. If someone attacks them, you’ve been attacked as well. If they are drowning, your head is being dragged under water right beside them. And if they die, you might as well start digging your own grave because a part of you belongs to the ground. That is what love is.

Forever doesn’t mean until the end of our lives, it means until the end of eternity.

Forever only applied to the promises I’d made. Forever was the eternity I planned to give her.