This Is Not The End.

You chase me around the house and we can smell the freshly cut grass and the wet sky and the warmth of the summer evening. And I run and laugh and stumble, staining my knees grassy green and muddy brown.

I don’t bother to get up; instead, I fall to the ground. You stand over me, arms akimbo, smirking wildly. With a gentle, deliberate movement, you kick my side.

“Tag. You’re it.”

“Mmmm,” I agree complacently and lift my arm to tug insistently on the bottom of your shorts. I roll over and laugh into the grass when you hurriedly move your hands to the waist of your shorts pulling them up urgently.

“Silly girl,” I say. “Get down with me.” With a quiet thud, you fall to the ground with me. After some adjusting, you rest your head next to mine and we stare at the clouds together.

Then the sun moves behind a cloud and the light changes, casting shadows. Your face is darkened, no longer kissed by the sun. A breeze ripples through the grass.

This is the perfect moment. This is not the end.

“Ice cream!” you cry, hearing the distinctive jingle of the ice cream truck. Pushing off the ground, using my stomach as a launching pad, you run to the front yard, grinning madly. The cloud moves and you’re bathed in sunlight once again.

I rub my stomach painfully and follow you, though at a much more sedate pace.

You scream.

I run.

And there’s the ice cream truck, shining and colorful. And there’s you. Lying on the ground, surrounded by a small group of people.

I hear someone call the police, but that’s the last thing I hear.

I run, pushing past a barrier of people.

And there you are, laying on the ground. I think I call your name.

I want you to be in pain.

I want you to cry.

I want you to bleed, to hurt, to curse, to hate me, to blame me.

I don’t want you to be dead.

I don’t want to fall to my knees next you.

I don’t want to be pulled away from you by a police officer who doesn’t know you. I know you.

I don’t want to feel like this. My eyes blur and my ears roar and I am cold and I ache and I forget how to breathe. I want you to hurt like I do. Because that would mean that you could feel, just like I can.

Please, don’t go. Please, please, please.

My heart has been ripped out of my chest and I have been punched in the stomach. I don’t know how to tell you how I feel, because I feel too much and nothing all at once.

I wake up with the same agonizing pain in my chest, cold sweat dripping down the back of my neck.

With weak legs, I run out of my room and down the hallway. Carefully, I open the door at the end of the corridor. I hear your snoring before I see you, and I sink to the wooden floor.

You sit up and look around sleepily. “Whoz zere?” you mumble.

“The ice cream truck,” I reply shortly. “Go back to bed.” You laugh once, before falling back asleep.

I walk back to my room and fall asleep.

This is not the end. And I can rest.