Side by Side With Me // {Elon's Last}

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

This is my December, this is me alone, and I just wish that I didn't feel
Like there was something I missed

Julian had known this was coming. The thought was sobering, grounding as I fiddled with the leather bracelet at my wrist. At least Mahlah knew what it meant as I tore at the knot, trying to set it free. He had known the moment he gave me this token, this connection. It was a goodbye; I just hadn’t been able to admit it to myself. I regretted not recognizing that moment, fleeting as all the others have been until now. I should have seized on it, told him what I wanted to say now and closed the door.

But I hadn’t been ready. And I’m not ready now.

The knot comes apart, dropping the bracelet onto the sandy floor. I wave my good hand at it, swallow down another bout of blood. I’m not sure I can speak, do anything more than wriggle and writhe. But surely my sister, my brother, they will know what I want – the same thing they will want, to be helped, to be loved and remembered. And this token is the best chance I have at that. Another gurgle and cough as I try to tell Mahlah and Jae I love them.

With the sea a stone’s throw away, I am drowning. It bubbles up from my heart, pulling me away from the sunlight, from Mahlah and Jae, from the Northern Community Home. But it had always been sunny there – well, except for that one prolonged, depressing winter. Why I remember it now escapes me. Perhaps it’s because I can remember it; I was almost ten, and settled in my relationships with my brothers, my sisters, with the routine of the community home, constantly disrupted though it was. And I remember the long streaks of rain on the windows, the hours reading to Reggie, watching Mace fix a leaking pipe. I wasn’t sure where I fit in then.

I haven’t been sure of many things.

But I’m sure now, of what’s to come.

And it is enlightening, freeing, the power of this knowledge. If only I could share it, to comfort Mahlah and Jae and Klaus and the others, but for now it is all mine. I don’t know if anything’s ever been mine the way this is, and I want to revel in it, hold it, but there is the pulling, this opening in the middle of me that I can’t get around.

The seaweed has lost its amour, and I tumble to the floor planks, still partially encased in the seaweed’s last grasp. The impact is bright, a pain all its own, the sort that reminds me that I am alive. I can barely feel the pulsing middle of me anymore; it has already gone beyond. But my shoulder, which hits first, and then my knees – those I can still feel, still want to draw close.

I do so carefully, curling into a ball, preparing to leave this world as I entered it. I find a pocket of energy work its way around the blood in my throat. I cough violently onto the planks, and in a great rush say the only thing that has ever mattered to me: “I love you.”

And I’m so very glad I thought ahead so I would not have to spend these moments remembering Val’s quick smile, or Reggie’s double-sneeze, or Icarus’ plans for flight, or Cygnus’ careful words, or Mace’s silent eyes. I don’t even have to remember my conversations with Julian, or the looks I traded with Klaus, or the warmth I shared with Mahlah, or the respect I had for Jae. I have known and remembered all these things so thoroughly I am sure I’ll bring them with me.

But it never hurts to have one more.

My fingers twitch as I stretch them, the rest of my body beginning to still. It is quite frankly a relief not to have to pay such close attention to it, to command my limbs which have never really liked to listen to me. I open one finger at a time for Mahlah and hope she will accept my offering, in addition to the fallen bracelet.

Fading, dimming. This is the sunset, come early.

I want to reach out and touch it, feel the flame on my fingertips. That’s something I haven’t done enough of. I’ve always known I was a kinesthetic learner, and yet, I’ve felt so little, other than the bite of the back of my brother’s hand, or the soft muffled affections of a cow, horse, pig. The only real touch I’ve known of late is Mahlah’s tiny hands, Julian’s swift kiss. I regret it. I let myself regret it. I should have touched more, connected palm to palm. It is easier now to regret things, now that a blade has tasted my heart. That was touch too, of the sharpest, truest kind.

I should have thanked him, Mr. Ripley. But he’s gone, now, I think. I feel fairly sure that I am not alone but my sight has dimmed, and my hearing failed. I can only hear the slow whoosh of blood beating in my open heart, the pulse leaving my body instead of filling it. I don’t want to die like this; I don’t want to die at all. But I’ve had an extraordinary life. I could have been left in a ditch as a babe, or sent to one of the other community homes and starved before I could walk. I could have been alone, locked in a basement. But instead I was loved by Ma, given brothers and sisters, and for the last two years I have lived better than I realized anyone could. That was a gift.

Mace’s gift.

I wish I had something better to give him now – something to show him how right he’s done by me. All those wonderful meals, a soft bed to sleep in, a horse to care for, phone calls to Two, and even a trip to the Capitol. Everything since the end of the Fifty-Ninth has been worth it, at least for me. Surely he knows that; he must. Someone will tell him. This is not how I thought I would die, at least before the Reaping, but it is not the worst death. I am not alone; I may even be remembered.

I cling to that hope as tears roll down through my shuttered eyelashes, my heart whumping out slowly, haphazardly. My thoughts drift to the mechanics of blood flow, of anatomy, something I spent relatively little time teaching. But what I do know is that an uneven heart beat is a danger. And then I realize I’m wasting time thinking about my body, my broken body, curled around a dagger and a cavern where my heart used to be.

I want to see the sunset.

Whicker.

The Sunday market.

A pot roast.

Jae’s smile.

Perfectly shined silverware.

Klaus’ indescribable eyes.

The smell of cinnamon.

Mahlah’s fierce hold on my hand.

My striped pillow case.

Julian. All of him.

My classroom.

The Stromstatt girls.

The algae-filled pond outside our home.

Icarus.

Bales of hay, stacked against the sunrise.

Cygnus.

My hair turning copper in the early fall.

Mace.

There are some things I will see soon. I do not have to miss Walker, and I can promise Mace, even in silence, to hug Larae. And some tributes in this room, I don’t have to miss, because I will see them again. I can take more with me than I could have hoped. The memory of a song. The whisper of a kiss. Something else awaits me, beyond this room, this moment, this last breath. There has to be more.

I am ever hopeful.

[/size][/blockquote]

banner credit: it's a love story
lyrics: linkin park my december