It was a Friday night. The kind of night that made me love this stupid town. The February air was crisp and the sky was clear and inky blue, scattered with a frosting of winter stars.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1FAnhfrr2X
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It was the night my world fell apart.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOLTkrvqVYC
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They say that your life flashes before your eyes as death reaches for your hand, and in those few moments it seemed to. I had always imagined it would sprawl out like a movie timeline, cutting between significant events, but it was nothing even close. It came to me like a bad acid trip, splattered moments mixed with vivid paint and glitter and the images were things I had simply forgotten because I thought they would never be worth remembering.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2KP0URLrbV
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They told me that the ambulances rushed me to the hospital, EMTs speaking quickly, pursed lips and quick movements, trying their best to bind me to the world. And that the Emergency Room was busy that night, something about a drop in the barometer for an upcoming storm inducing labor in what must have been every Mormon mother-to-be in the valley. They said that the ER unit on duty was professional and efficient as they lifted me off the gurney and onto the table and began to hook me to their machines.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpRXdstgloZ
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It was these tiny little things they told me that made the night seem more like a strange dream than an actual event.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡngiHzW09E3
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They pronounced me dead at 2:35 AM.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbMCdBRrub2
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Two minutes later my lungs convulsed as I gasped for air.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxxaixXjt02
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They told me that I was like a crazed animal thrown into a sea of ice, thrashing and wailing incoherently as stunned nurses raced to hold me down, to start their machines again and to keep me from tearing myself to pieces. The doctor rushed into the stark room, flustered and short of breath from sprinting down the long hospital corridor to look in on his recently deceased patient. He clasped me in thick hands and looked into my face. They say that I stopped fighting at that moment, staring vacantly into the eyes of this physician. Green eyes. Deep and soothing like the down comforter on your bed back home. They say that I cursed loudly, before dropping into my pillow and losing consciousness again.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBmWc7ZAe5
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The hours that followed were nothing more than splotchy marks of ink on my mind. I was in and out of consciousness, vitals unstable and shaky. IV tubes snaked out of my pale arms into machines with lights and bells and my nose filled with the stench of antiseptics and sterilization.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpodX8yc3U0
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Fragments of conversations, hushed voices, and familiar words all danced wickedly to the cadence of the beeping monitors in the caverns of my mind, falling together like misshapen puzzle pieces on white linoleum floors. I reached tiredly for understanding, but it was all mixed up, seeming far away and drained of substance.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTSjssLrT91
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Drug overdose, they said. Only I knew I had been clean for at least a few days. You would have been so proud. Withdrawal, they speculated later, after my condition had stabilized enough to move me to my own room with a fat window that offered a city view. I wanted to scream at them. I wanted to tell them that it had been the never-ending feeling of butterflies in my stomach and the memory of stolen kisses that had been my fleeting thoughts as I crashed into the pavement. Heartbreak, I wanted to yell. I was dying of a broken heart. I was broken without you. I wanted them to know. I wanted the world to hear it. I wanted it to be recorded and dated and sealed with wax and official seals that you were the last thing I thought of as I crumbled to the sidewalk in a familiar neighborhood. But I was muted by sedatives and by the weight of dying and could only offer my ears to their words.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Sm7gqb8iI
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“He called me,” I heard a voice whisper, “before the hospital had even called us. He was on the phone with me about it.” They were talking about you again. It was the jumble of words that made my heart swell and break in the same motion. It was the blue splash of acrylic on my water colored soul. These puzzle pieces were composed in a song of your voice, sobbing frantically over wireless telephone waves into my best friend's ear in the dead of night. You had woken from a nightmare and called. Not my phone but his. Knowing that something was wrong. Knowing that you'd never reach me on my cell. He's dead, Walt. You had known before the flashing red and white lights had even arrived on the scene. He'd tried to quiet you, telling you that you had been dreaming and there was no need to worry.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1RrXSTsmV3
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I had heard this story, or at least parts of it, so many times I could recite it nearly verbatim. I kept hoping that the happy-ending of the story would be that you had given up on Walt's assurances and left immediately for the airport. I could see you in this storyline, standing at the ticket desk, hair messy and clothing in disarray, demanding a seat on whatever plane would put you in Salt Lake the quickest. I could see you pounding your fist on the counter in irritation until they handed you a boarding pass and ushered you to the plane. I strained to hear your voice each time I awoke, fumbling sloppily with consciousness. Waiting for you to be the one standing at my bedside.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFmAJ42h5DH
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Instead, it was Walt's face that smiled at me when I opened my eyes. Walt's voice that whispered jokes and stories to my broken body. Walt's frame that folded into the chair beside the window as he waited out the minutes.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjSUlypTeHN
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I didn't mind that Walt was there. He was, after all, my best friend even when we fought, even when we hated each other, even when we told each other that we hoped the other would die, we were still the best mix, in perfect shades of green. You and I had never mixed quite so well, contrasting yet complimentary and it showed in all that we ever did. It showed in vibrant hues of deafening volume, in violent yellows and bloody reds, splayed across royal purples and oranges. It was a messy abstract that was nothing short of amazing.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpBXBVSKcVM
764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXyFhSU1aSf
And it was the colors of you that haunted my sleep. More than the taste or smell of you. More than the sound of your voice or the depth of your eyes. More than the silky feel of your hair or your skin. It was the colors of all of those things. You were more than an artist. You were the art.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWC5oarqvgg
764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfiKpKb9NzD
It was color that pulled me from my sleep. Pressing its brilliant sunny fingers against my eyelids, tugging my mind from hibernation, sliding into the sunlit room.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXh4Y0PBKIc
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Warm fingers laced through mine, tucked beneath the soft skin of a chin. The soft whisper of breath that could have been a mumble of words or a simple sigh. I struggled to lift my eyelids, squinting in the light that overwhelmed the sterile room.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS3qQVnjner
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Your lips moved in a small smile as I tightened my hand around yours and your eyes rose to meet mine in an explosion of color. My breath caught in my throat and my heart raced, changing the beat of the monitor's whine momentarily and causing us both to chuckle. 764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP7IfNKLxni
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"You're here," I rasped out, my tongue feeling as if it hadn't been used in years.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD5ipuP6uEX
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You leaned forward, pressing your lips against the back of my hand. "Of course I am."764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCJ8WwiWMzn
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Our eyes met again, in silent conversation, framed by lashes, but naked of innuendo. You knew what I was thinking. You knew all the questions in my head. You knew the only answer I wanted to know. You knew my doubts and my weaknesses. You knew the way our colors laid against each other in love and in hate. You knew the curves and angles of my every shadow. You knew me. The same way you knew that I was dead from miles away. And the same way you knew that holding your hand made me feel more alive than I had in months.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEDO1mpt4fO
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You smiled again, your lips revealing secrets and promises that I knew in the same ways that you knew me.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbMlggm2U0i
764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsSXEQrfc0T
And I smiled back, feeling my heart begin to beat again.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3nQMbwYjjA
764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1X2iG6qfuj
"I couldn't miss your birthday," you said softly, "could I?"764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYR8z5djP53
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