“You’ve been sleeping for too long,” Chiyo says, her voice floating above my body. “The doctor is saying that the longer you stay like this, the harder it’ll be for you to come back.”
Would that be such a terrible thing? I could live like this for years, hooked up to tubes and machines until my family lost hope in sustaining me. It would be no different from being a hikikomori, except maybe I had more societal approval as a vegetable. Everyone would abandon me over time, moving on with their lives. If my mother and Mr. Watanabe felt especially lonely, they could always get busy and make another child. Airi would have another sibling. Even Chiyo who visits me every day would find a new friend to occupy herself with.
“I miss you,” she continues. “And if you think I’ll replace you, you must be stupid. I refuse to go on without you. You need to wake up so we can graduate from St. Catherine’s together.”
More words come out of her mouth, but the rest is washed away by brain fog. I can picture her clearly sitting next to my bed. Her hair is styled in perfect chestnut waves, resting over the green blazer of the school uniform. She stares at me with her hazel eyes, irises shining just as brightly as her cherry earrings. I envision her with a matching cherry necklace. In my head, I pluck the cherry from the chain and eat it, pit and all. Rubies have never tasted so sweet.
That was the thing about living in my head. The impossible was probable. I subsisted on the milk of my imagination.
I try to fool myself and create a world more compelling than reality. But despite all my efforts, my illusions are flimsy. Take, for example, my attempts to make another version of you.
I can’t seem to get the details right. Once upon a time, I would’ve had the blue of your eyes and the gold of your hair memorized. When you looked at me, did I see the sky or a cluster of sapphires? Did I use to tuck honeyed locks behind your ears or strands of strawberry blonde? A photo would have helped me tell the difference.
Because of my uncertain memory, you’ve transformed into a changeling. I think of you like the sun. Sometimes you’re the pale dawn with cloudy blue-gray eyes and a crown of platinum blonde, Airi’s pretty ivory sister in an alternate life. Other times you’re the sunset with indigo irises a step away from night and a halo of burning gold. Rarely are you noon, with a gaze so blue that you’re the envy of the clearest skies and hair so bright that I go blind looking at you.
You snap into focus when you’re noon, sharp and radiant as a fresh-cut diamond. This is the version of you I forgot. This was the girl I used to love, wrapped in sun-kissed skin and midnight dreams.
But you’re dead. Not even the sweetest fantasies can change that. Whether we walk through the woods or swim in a pond, you end up in my arms cold and lifeless.
When stars die, they explode into a supernova. They shine just as brightly in death if not even more so, sending shockwaves through a galaxy. When you disappeared, some part of me knew you weren’t coming back. My world was disrupted, my distress manifesting in a broken mind that could only be soothed by hypnosis.
What remains of your memory is a black hole. I’m sucked into the vortex desperately trying to reverse the natural course of things. I refuse to forget you, but already you are out of reach and lost to the cosmos.
I should wake up. I can’t live here forever. It’s lonely being the only worshiper at your altar. Your grave is out there, waiting for my flowers.
“Stay with me,” you say, appearing by my side. “I told you that I would never leave you by yourself.”
And there you were, exactly as I remembered you the day that you confessed your love for me. Every freckle on your face was arranged in my favorite constellation. You shimmer with every movement, sparkling like you were made of glitter. My breath catches in my throat.
I come to my senses. “You’re not real. Also, you did leave me.”
You shake your head. “I didn’t go away. I just went to the other side. What separates you and me is a door. Walk through and we can be together.”
I hesitate. “If there’s only a door, can’t you walk through?”
The outline of your figure blurs. Your face changes. “It’s something you have to do. Everything else is outside my power.”
I take a step back. “I don’t want this.” It was my darkest wish, but I never had the guts to take the crucial step. At least, not since the night you pushed me in the pond.
“You don’t want to be with me?”
“I never said that.”
The ground beneath me shifts. Water rises to my chest, soaking my body. You’re suddenly close, your breath grazing my cheek.
“But you do want me. And I want you. You know what you must do.”
I’m neck deep in the water and your lips are less than an inch away from mine. My skin is warm, feverish with excitement. Never did something so wrong feel so right.
You were making it easy for me. I want to take that fatal leap and drown in you. I would have liked nothing more than to abandon the life I already had and forget everyone who loved me. It would be holy to dissolve in the arms of a mental construct and reject reality. I lean in, closing the gap between us.
“Stop,” a voice says. There’s someone at the edge of the water calling to me. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
I see his dark hair, recognizing him instantly. “Evan?”
It feels like years since I’d seen him. But it had only been six months of spiraling into burning agony, most of which was spent in a tug of war between forgetting and remembering. Now I find myself on the pendulum swinging back and forth from living to dying, dizzy from indecision.
“I’ve spent forever looking for you. No one told me you moved out of the country. Do you know how it was, searching the world for you when nobody cared?”
It was a feeling I knew all too well. I just didn’t think anyone felt the same about me. It’s oddly touching that someone I didn’t meaningfully think about has these strong emotions for me.
He’s there in the hospital room, speaking like I’m going to wake up at any second. God, I must look pathetic in that bed, swathed in a hospital gown and straddling death.
I can’t see him, but I picture him effortlessly. I imagine a thinner face, slimmed by age. The cuts on his cheeks have healed, hardening into fine little scars. In the right lighting, I can even pretend that his mother never hit him. His hair is slightly longer but not unruly or unkempt. Just accidentally forgotten in his rush here.
“It was my fault,” he says. “I was the one that couldn’t find her. She died because of me, not you. That’s why you’re still asleep, isn’t it? You can’t blame yourself, not when you’ve never committed the crime. Nana, I know you can hear me. Please wake up. Six months ago, I saved your life. I’m not going to let you throw it away now.”
The water recedes, sinking until it becomes knee deep. He reaches a hand toward me, pulling me out of the pond. Outside of my mind, he holds my hand gently. I feel the roughness of the scars on his fingers. In the time that I’d been living in Japan, I can’t help but wonder about the kind of life he led back in our small town. Had his circumstances been kinder without me there? As someone who had once been my friend, he deserved a peaceful life.
Strangely enough, I think of my father. I remember being a kid wading in the waves, watching him swim further away from the shore. He too was lost to the water, pulled away by the fatal siren song of the sea. Dying to save me.
But that act of heroism seemed selfish in hindsight. Had he made a sacrifice or did he use me as a way out? I see him swimming to me, grabbing my waist and pulling me to land. He’s strong and healthy, moving through the sea like he’s made of water. And suddenly, out of nowhere, he lets go. I reach out for him, but he sinks away from my grasp. My movements are infuriatingly slow as I try to plunge after him, ignoring the plea of my lungs for air.
The dark water consumes him. It refuses to take me and I’m lifted to the light, cradled in the arms of a stranger. My feet touch the sand and I open my eyes to find myself alone on the beach. The person who saved me is gone along with my mother and all the other sunbathers. I’m the only human being on the vast expanse of the endless shore.
A door materializes before me, rising from the sand. I turn the knob, meeting your eyes. The sight of you makes me weak in the knees. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, walking through the entrance. A warm sensation envelops my body.
“Welcome home,” you say.
For once, all seemed right with the world.
6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi50VTsfeQh
