The Five

by Lily White

Rainey Day, it appeared, was not shy of her body at all. Not that she should be. There was an appeal to her, something raw, primal, and carnal. 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.

“I’ll love you forever, Rainey. Protect you. Take care of you. There’s nowhere you can go where I won’t find you.”

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

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.

“I promised you I’d find you, Rainey. Promised you I’d take care of you. That I’d protect you. That I’d love you more than you could love yourself.”

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 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.

Rainey had a lot of problems, but the monster she’d created wasn’t one of them. I would love her. I would take care of her. I would protect her and I would always find her. Forever doesn’t mean until the end of our lives, it means until the end of eternity.