Forever and Always

I love you.

The three deadliest words in every language. The words you spoke to me late that night before you left me. You had made love to me. It was my first time, and now I know that it will be my last time.

Oh yes, it had been magical. You were there, your lovely face lit up by the candle light. The candles floating merrily in their scent of vanilla filling the air, leaving just enough for us to breathe. That is how I shall remember you, forever with your face illuminated with candle-light, smelling intensely of vanilla.

You had been so gentle. So caring. So perfect with your touch. You had kissed away the fear in my eyes so easily, and all my trust had been in you. You could’ve broken me with one wrong caress, but you had known exactly what to do. I had never wanted to let go. I had never wanted to be finished. But eventually is was.

When it was over. You got up, and started to get dressed. I looked out the window. It was raining heavily. And it was late. I didn’t want you to go. I cried. I told you I love you and begged you not to go. But it was to no avail. You always won.

“Your parents will be home soon,” you had said. “I wouldn’t want to bother them.”

You took my face in one hand and tilted it up and kissed me one last time. You pulled on your jacket and left. I loved that jacket. I had been pressed against it’s warmth many times for comfort. When you had first kissed me, my first kiss, ever, you had worn that jacket.

Still wrapped in my bedsheets, I went to my window to watch you walk away. I waited while you walked down the stairs. The elevator had been broken, and it took a while to use the stairs. That elevator had always been broken. But today I cursed it because it took away time. If you had been able to take that elevator, you would’ve crossed that street sooner, before that car came. But you crossed when you did. That car hit you.

Fortunately, to some extent, the driver wasn’t drunk. He knew he’d hit something, and he stopped. From my watch in the window, I ran to the phone to dial 911. The police came, and so did an ambulance. They took you away.

The next day, I visited you in the hospital, you were in a coma. They told me that maybe if I kept talking to you, maybe you’d get up. I talked to you all day, until my parents came late at might to take me home. The dragged me away from your side, saying I could come back tomorrow. I left my number so they would call me at night to tell me of any change. Eight days and seven nights passed by. On the eigth night, the phone rang. I knew it could only be one person calling me. Or rather one place.

The hospital was calling. You had passed away in the night. I pulled on a jacket and ran. Ran down the stairs. Out the door. To the hospital. I had to see you one last time before they put your body away forever. They asked what to do with your body. Since you had no real family, they turned to your lover, me. They said they wanted to give your body away from medical research.

“No.” I said, calmly, quietly. Then, as a need to reassure myself, I said it again, louder. “No!” You weren’t dead. You couldn’t be. But yet you were. I told them you had wanted your body cremated. It was what you had always said. You didn’t want someone picking at your bones in a few months. And you didn’t want anything but my love to be living in them either. So they were burned. You were burned. It was all burned.

You had never meant for any of this to happen really. You had never wanted to die in some tragic mistake.

“People die everyday in accidents. It’s truly a wonder that we’re both still alive today. But I don’t want to die in some accident. I want to chose when I die.”

So we had made a plan to love each other as long as one of us was alive. And to stay alive. I will always keep that promise.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” The only words I heard for a long time. Not anything specific, for they knew a love of our kind was unspoken of. But it was there, whether they chose to acknowlegde it or not. It was there, and they could never kill it.

My parents were the only ones who didn’t behave that way. But I wished they had. After the ordeal they made like nothing had ever happened, nothing at all. The fact that they were ignoring it only showed how ashamed they were. Ashamed enough to forget it forever.

And forever it shall be forgotten. Because forever I shall love you. Forever and always.