As I straightened I saw her. How I didn’t see her all along was confusing; she was standing right in front of me, after all.
“Laurie?” I whispered.
She grinned big and wide, showing that smile even Julia Roberts would’ve been envious of. The smile that painted her pretty face exquisitely and did so often. Her golden curls were tumbling around her shoulders, shining like honey in that pleasing light. Her lineless and ageless face was exactly how I remembered it. Delicate features, eyes that had only seen happiness and love. A small frame, wrapped in a white sundress. Polly’s old white sundress. That dress made me sad for some reason. I couldn’t remember why.
“Hey, Lulu,” she said softly, her voice like bells.
That voice curled around me, so foreign yet familiar at the same time. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but they didn’t fall because this didn’t seem to be a place suitable for tears. It was too perfect.
Even one drop of tears would ruin it.
So, they didn’t come.
“Are you really here?” I whispered.
She nodded.
I watched her face. Remembered it.
“I miss you. So much.”
Her small hand reached out to squeeze mine. It was so real and so surface at the same time. I felt it against my own skin, but it also skimmed over me like a ghost.
“I’m here,” she whispered back. “I’ll always be here.”
I blinked. “Are you happy?”
I didn’t know why I asked that. It seemed stupid but I needed to know.
She squeezed again. “Of course. I was happy before. Always. Here I’m always like that too.”
It made sense. This was her cloudless day. It could be mine too. I knew that.
It was inviting me. Beckoning me.
“Do I have a choice?” I asked through the thickness at my throat, thinking of the people who were already becoming blurry, lost in the meadow that was so comforting.
But I held onto one. One I needed to breathe, even more than this crisp air that tasted like honeysuckle.
Laurie tilted her head. “I don’t know. Do you, Lulu?”
Her question settled in my stomach, in my throat. He was slipping like the rest of them. If I didn’t grasp that, I’d be lost. I knew that.
But then I’d have to leave Laurie. She’d be alone.
“I’m never alone,” she promised, seeming to hear the fear I didn’t voice. “Always with you.” She paused. “Grab on, Lulu,” she ordered softly.
I grabbed on, just before he floated away like the others.
“Love you,” I called as I was dragged away.
I was underwater. Drowning again. And this time it wasn’t comfortable, or warm. It was cold, unnatural. I gulped for air that I’d been breathing cleanly for the past three months.
I needed that air. I couldn’t be drowning any more.
Something squeezed my hand amidst the drowning, something that gave me hope for surface and clean air.
“Snow?” The voice was deep, urgent, saturated in concern, but also muffled, weirdly thick.
More voices joined, but it was like I was in a bathtub and they were all above me. I could only hear their murmurs; that one voice was the clearest.
His breath kissed my neck. “Baby, come back to me now. It’s time to breathe again.” The voice was a whisper and a yell at the same time
I used it like a rope to yank myself up to the surface. It was a fight, but I had to do it.
I didn’t know how long it took. For me, it felt like moments, but as I got closer, the voices receded and then they were gone.
Only one remained.
At first, the breaths were unnatural. Harsh. But then when I heard another rough exhale, a sigh, and a flexing of pressure on my hands, it was easier. Cleaner.
He was there. I wasn’t drowning.
My eyes unstuck and he came into view in stark color.
The lights were too bright, uncomfortable. The blankets scratched me and the heaviness at my stomach was uncomfortable to the point of pain.
I met chocolate eyes.
“Thank fuck, baby,” he breathed, his face etched in sorrow and relief. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to my head. Then my temple. Then my cheek. Then back so he could lift our entwined hands and kiss mine.
The harsh blankets and bright lights and pain didn’t matter. Because I was breathing.
And this was better than a half-remembered meadow and the memory of honeysuckle that didn’t seem right.
“I’m alive, right?” I rasped, needing to make sure.
He visibly flinched. “Yeah, babe. You’re fuckin’ alive. Kismet, remember? This shit is already decided for us. You weren’t getting taken away. The universe promised forever.”
Shadows danced under his eyes, demons and chaos dancing within them.
I inwardly flinched at the reality of what happened. My inquiring mind needed to know the specifics, how I got here, who did this, but I sensed that would be too much chaos for the moment. We needed a pocket of stillness. The world could wait.