Chapter 8, Reality

Emptiness, loneliness and despair, the oh-so cliché emotions used in such…tragic situations as the one I was forcefully dumped in.

I feel empty, as if there’s a huge gaping hole in my chest, as if I have no fucking soul, no purpose and it hurt, it hurt so badly. I could only find a bit of peace when I was with her and even then it was still horrid. I sit here, in the churches front row, and watch as person after person come up to talk of Raife as the party animal, Rock star guy everyone knew. I don’t think anyone saw the man in another light. Sadly enough, that includes me.

I feel despair, as in hopelessness. Watching the hearse in front of me as we drove to the cemetery and noticing that my mother never showed, I felt that there was no hope or chance of me being ever being happy. No, it’s more like I don’t think I’ll ever get over what’s happened. I could definitely be happy with her. She’s forever, I pray she’s forever.

But I do not feel loneliness. I cannot feel lonely. She’s here all the time, when I need her, when I think I don’t need her, when I want to push her away. Even when she’s not here, she’s with me. I can feel it, I can feel her.

I think one needs all three in order to slip into complete darkness. I’m lucky I have her. As she entwines our fingers and gives my hand a firm squeeze, I watch Raife being lowered into the ground and I realize how grateful I am that Spencer’s the one I can count on.

I wake up, sweaty, panting and wrapped in the smell of vanilla, in the girl I love, in Spencer.

“Was it the same dream?"

I saw that she had the team’s playbook out. She must have been awake when the dream started. I simply nodded.

"Spence, I have a really bad feeling about it. Why do I keep having it, why that same dream?"

"I don’t know Ash, but nothing bad that I can prevent will happen. I promise."

___________2 weeks Earlier_________

The clock on the sterile white wall opposite the two silent teens struck 12 am and the blonde shed even more silent tears as she held her sobbing counterpart. Ashley was officially 17 years of age and her best and only friend’s gift, to their knowledge, lay prone on a surgery table on the other side of the taunting double doors to their left.