Teaser Tuesday

Posted by Raven M on 4:47 PM in

I know I haven't been posting...a lot. Sorry guys! Life has been super busy. Senior year has been hectic and I'm waiting to hear back from a few colleges that I applied to so...yeah. Since it's Teaser Tuesday, I decided to post a short story I just wrote. It sucks and it's really sappy but it's the first thing (besides essays for school and college) that I have written in a long LONG time.

I hope it doesn't suck too bad. :)

______


Time was always moving. He never stood still. In all the years I’ve known him – I don’t think he ever stopped to “smell the roses”. Even his kisses were frantic, rushed. Part of me just wanted him to hold me for longer than a second, to press his lips against mine for more than a minute or two. I doubted that would ever happen. Time was always in a hurry and now that I think about it – he had every right to be.
The doctors said that he only had a few more weeks to live. Maybe even less than that. Either way, every second of his short life was important to him. He wanted to see and do everything before he died.

***
“You should just let me drive,” Time muttered, sighing.
“We’ll get there,” I said, biting my lip. It took all I had not to start crying. The tears were there, waiting for their chance to fall, but I refused to give them that chance. Time didn’t need to be mourned while he was still alive. I was going to miss seeing him, his naturally unkempt hair, the connect-the-dot freckles that were scattered across his face, the bottle-glass blue of his eyes. Everything. He was once just the boy next door, the boy who used to eat dirt and chase girls with worms. Now he was so much more than that. He still lived next door but he wasn’t just a boy. He was my boy. I loved him.
I never got a chance to tell him that though. I didn’t know how. I just assumed that love was understood, like you could just look at someone and they would know how you felt. But I couldn’t rely on my eyes to say everything that I wanted Time to know before he died. He might misinterpret what they were trying to say.
I never wanted to be one of those girls. You know the ones that say they can’t live without their boyfriends; the ones who spend every second, minute, hour of the day thinking about them. But I can’t help it. I can’t help but to think about when he’ll die and if someone will be there, holding his hand. I reach over and link our hands together. To my surprise, he doesn’t pull away.
“Time…” I breathed.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”

***
I don’t recognize him anymore.
His lips still feel the same. His eyes are still the same color and shape but there’s something missing. Life. Time is still living and breathing, walking and talking but there is no life in the way that he lives, breathes, walks and talks. Everything about him just seems so: dead. His voice is hollow. His eyes are empty. His steps are slow and calculating. His breath is labored.
“Jamie…” he started.
“Why don’t you kiss me anymore?”
“I’m dying.”
“I know that, Time. But I…”
“I think we should start seeing other people.” He turned his head a little. The wind blew a few strands of hair into his eyes. I wanted to see his eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
When he looked at me again, his eyes were red and cloudy with a chance of rain. It was raining. One by one, teardrops began to trickle down his face. “What is there to understand, Jamie? I won’t be here in a few days. Hell, I might even die tomorrow or in a few minutes. The point is…you don’t need to see me like this. You don’t have to watch me die.”
I shook my head, not believing the words that were coming out of his mouth, even though I felt them in my soul. “I want to watch you live, Time. Don’t you get that?”
For once, in what seemed like forever, Time stood still. “You deserve to be with someone who can live long enough to love you.”
Even though I knew he would try to push me away, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close, savoring the smell of his clothes, the smell of him.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”

Thanks for reading! <3