Undying Love

Matthew sat in the wheelchair, slumped over because he was half asleep, trying to focus his eyes on the bright red roses in front of him. He had asked to be alone in the garden for a reason, and it wasn’t to admire the bright flowers and tastefully arranged shrubs. The purples, yellows, oranges and reds all blurred together as his vision swirled some, but it didn’t matter because none of those were what he was there for.

Today he would find it. Today he would crawl out of the wheelchair and find it. It had to be today; tomorrow might be too late.

He tried to move, just shift some in his seat to help the numbness in his left thigh, and it was almost more than he could manage. Pain radiated all along his body, so intense and sharp that his vision swirled more and his mind clouded over. Tensing to a stop, he tired to be still so the pain would lessen, and it took a long time. And even when he felt he could open his eyes and think again, the pain was still there. It was always there now, and he knew he was getting weaker. He knew he was almost finished and there was so little he could do.

His eyes drifted back to the roses and his mind returned to the goal, the only thing that mattered. His body ached just knowing what he was going to do, and tears nearly fell from his eyes at the mere thought, but he grit his teeth and stretched himself slowly. Carefully, he slid his way out of the wheelchair and it nearly killed him. His skin was so thin and felt like it was bleeding where he slid from the chair. His joints ached, his bones screamed in pain, his body protested—it had grown too frail for this.

Tears finally poured from his eyes from the agony but he refused to let a single sound escape, blood seeping through his teeth where he bit his lip. He could at least pretend to be strong, but he couldn’t stop the tears. He fell roughly to the ground when he’d slid far enough and it knocked the air from his lunges and paralyzed him in riveting, echoing shots of pain.

For a long time, he couldn’t do anything but huddle on the ground and suffer. When he felt himself start to sink into unconsciousness, his mind became frantic. He reached his arm out, though it hurt terribly, to the roses, landing in the dirt. His fingers curled, digging up soil around the second rose in the row. Slowly, his breathing so labored that he shook, he pulled the rose up, the thorns digging into his hand so that he bled. He didn’t feel them. Dropping the rose, frantic because he would only be awake for a few more seconds, he threw his hand to the soil that had been unearthed.

A small smile curled his thin lips as his fingers curled around the ring in a handful of dirt. Ali’s ring…her smile flashed through his mind when he’d given it to her. That was what he held onto as he faded into darkness, even though in the back of his mind, in a fading thought, he realized…. Matthew fell unconscious, and went deathly still.