Page 197 of Between the Blue
“You needed to focus on the dream that would last.”
“Why did you get to decide that for me?” I question her.
“Because you wouldn’t have made the right choice.” She tilts her head, and her hazel eyes glaze over. “I wouldn’t have lasted.”
My throat bobs painfully. “And how am I supposed to last when you’re gone?”
“Just as you have been.”
I scoff a humorless laugh. “You’re overestimating me, Jules. It’s been nothing to me. Nothing without you. None of it feels worth anything.”
She lets go of my hand then. Shifts her weight. Looks like she’s in pain as she does it. I reach out to help her, but she holds up a hand to stop me. Reaches under her pillow with the other.
She lays back down. Holds out her closed fist to me.
I look down at it, and she lifts her chin.
I hold out my hand. Open it. And she opens her fist.
Her sunshine necklace falls into my palm.
“You can remember me, if you want,” she says.
I break. Clutch the necklace in my fist as I cry.
The necklace that will never fit my neck. Because it was made just for her.
I was made just for her.
I was so sure of it.
Think I still am.
Think I will be forever.
“As if I have a choice,” I mutter.
She laces my fingers in her own. Brings them to her lips.
Lets both of them rest on her chest. I feel her heartbeat.
So faint.
Fighting to stay against all the odds.
Like I should’ve fought to stay.
I raise my other hand. Run it over her hair.
It doesn’t look like the sun anymore. Not like it used to. Not with those bright, shining shades of a sunset. The kind that reminds you you’re alive.
No, it looks like that specific moment every evening.
Right after the prime of the sunset, when all the colors have faded away. When it’s just a pale yellow sky. And you know the night is coming.
That it’s about to swallow you whole.
And it makes all the sense in the world.
