Hello

This story contains profanity and implies sexual violence, violence and sensitive mental health concerns.

Leaves falling slowly

Drifting

Slow dancing

Letting the wind carry them

They hold hands without a care

Where will they go?

Light and smiling

A dream

Who knows?

Together, that’s where

Just keep holding

The wind picks up

Stronger now

A storm brewing

More leaves passing

Leaves bumping

Ripping

Pulling

Who were they?

They glance around

They only see

The other leaves

All rushing

Rushing

Gone

When they land

They don’t know where

Not together, that’s where

On the ground

Where all leaves go

When they let go

Okay. I’m doing it. I’m finally doing it. It’s been months of nightless sleep, the reminders of my promise scratching at the back of my neck.

I know, I know! 

Sleepless nights. That’s what I mean. 

Yes. 

Oh how I’ve tossed and turned. She has kept me so restless. But I’m doing it now, fulfilling the promise I made when I was young. 

The wind is cool as it sends my wispy white hair whipping about my face. The car windows are rolled down. Just the way it’s supposed to be. My left ear is nearly deaf from the roar of the early morning air rushing at it. But the radio is playing an 80’s rock song and I can hear it even with the clashing of the wind. 

I look at my hands as they grip the wheel tightly. They’re leathery now, not like they were decades ago when I last took this drive. I’m old now. My knuckles bulge sharply from beneath the thin, pale skin. 

Everything aches. I am old. But I’m driving like I’m young again and I can feel the vibration of the guitar run through me. I can almost hear the creaking of my face as it stretches into a smile. 

It has been months since she died. Many women my age dread the loss of their husbands the way I dread the loss of her. My truest friend. 

“Whoever’s left will come here,” she said. “Promise?”

“Promise,” I said. 

My heart races as I approach the trailhead. It’ll be only two hours before dawn breaks. Can I make it in time? 

I have to. 

I promised. 

I cross my arms over my chest as I start my climb up the trail. It’s not cold, but I’m shivering. Just like I shivered as I felt the warmth leave her hand. 

Oh how my hips ache as I step over mossy stones. We used to race up this trail. I don’t remember it being so steep, so slippery. I grab onto boulders to steady myself as I swing my legs over a branch. I stop and hold my knees as I catch my breath. 

What were we thinking when we made our promise back then? That one of us would die young and the other would sprint up this mountain? My God, we were stupid. 

I can do this. I have to. I need her voice to stop waking me. Poor Thomas can’t sleep while I’m busy thinking of her. He deserves his rest, the poor soul. He’s been with me for forty years, dealing with my insecurities and impatience. Not once has he said an angry word to me. Yes, he deserves his rest. 

Only a little more, I tell myself. I can see the false summit where the aspen meadow lies. Just a little more. 

My chest loosens and I push my legs forward. Each step comes faster. My lungs feel younger. The ache in my spine is almost a whisper, a ghost of my old body. 

The sky is no longer black, but a dark blue. For the first time in my long life, I am beating the hands of the clock. A laugh escapes my chest and I put a hand to my mouth, not wanting to draw attention of a mountain lion. I glance around, looking for a pair of glowing eyes. 

But I am safe. The tall, slim bars of the aspen trees tower over me, scarred with etched initials of visitors before me. If I look closely, I know I can find ours. 

It used to amaze me how such a place could exist on a mountain. Wildflowers and tall grass sweep my knees as I stroll through them. They offer rest. Their sweet, earthy scent fills my nostrils and I twirl around in a dance. 

I close my eyes and I am young again. I can hear our laughter as we head for the boulders where the real summit waits. 

I open my eyes and feel a slight chill touch my teeth. I’m grinning. 

My age doesn’t matter as I climb over the bulky stones that are larger than me. Years of my life slip off me like layers of worn jackets.

I’m close. 

When I arrive, a sea of deep blue and purple surrounds me. I take a deep breath and laugh at the stars. I’m almost as high as they are!

“You made it,” I hear to my right. 

I shriek in surprise and my chest tightens as I turn to the voice. 

“You!” I exclaim. 

She smiles a kind of sad smile. The way you smile down at your dog for the last time, as the vet is about to pump the killing potion into his vein. You smile at him because you don’t want him to see you cry right before he closes his eyes for the last time. You smile at him to tell him that he’s going to be okay even though you’re going to fall apart as soon as it’s over. That’s the kind of smile she gives me. 

We’re on the top of a fucking mountain and she’s smiling at me like this. She’s supposed to be dead.

But she is young again. 

She takes my hand and thrusts her fingers between mine. She has golden eyes that have green and brown in them. Galaxy eyes. She lifts my hands and kisses my knuckles. “We’re at the end now,” she says, “One last rush.”

“What are you doing here?” 

I look down. God, it’s far. And the bottom is so damning, nothing but boulders and dirt. There’s no music down there. No hot guy waiting for us. We’ll shatter like glass inside our bodies. 

“Don’t look there,” she says and points to the forest around our destination. “If we don’t let go, we’ll be out there.”

The dawn is breaking and everything has a pink and purple hue to it. I can see the town in the distance, its houses still dark and the lamp posts still lit. It hasn’t woken yet. It’s the magical part of the day, the moment before waking. Everything is still silent and the slowness of the sun’s light is just starting to burn the fog.

I think of the poem we wrote so many years ago when we were just kids. The promise we made to each other.

“You’re dead,” I say. My voice cracks and a hot tear crawls down my cheek. A lump forms in my throat. 

“We,” she says. 

“Me,” she says. 

“You,” she says. 

I crinkle my brows as I think of the moment I’m holding her hand. She’s dying. But I am looking up at her. 

I’m dying. 

She’s holding my hand. 

“I don’t…” She’s smiling at me. Her eyes confuse me. Galaxy eyes. They’ve looked back at me in the mirror many times. 

“We don’t deserve to die.” My voice cracks as I speak and I feel that lump in my throat starting to press harder. Don’t you cry.

She leans into me. “No we don’t. But we’re not dying.” She faces me with furious eyes. “We’re going to live forever. We’re not dying, we’re leaving. We’re walking away from all this shit to a place where no one can hurt us anymore.”

Her hair is black, but in this light it’s almost purple. My hair. She’s crazy. She’s fucking crazy. We’re not going to live forever. Once we hit the bottom, our bones will shatter and our heads will explode like melons. I don’t want to be scraped off the dirt after we’re found by some poor, unknowing hiker. It would probably be some young guy and his friends with their backpacks full of biodegradable toilet tissue and ziplock bags full of peanuts and raisins. They’d reach the summit and take selfies with the world behind them and then they’d look down and point at our distorted bodies and exploded heads. They’d take pictures and post them on Twitter and she and I would live on in the memories of everyone as broken, headless bodies. They’d talk about us years later when they’re drunk and lonely and we’re buried and rotted. Those bodies they found and how gross and disturbing we were.

She knows I’m backing out. She grabs my arms and glares at me. “Do you want to live the rest of eternity lost?”

I don’t.

“We promised,” she says. 

I gag. My stomach is churning and I’m getting all sweaty. 

“We decide our lives. We decide our deaths.”

But we’re already dead.

She’s looking at me now and I remember the time when we sat in Dad’s car. She was in the driver’s seat, Dad was in the passenger’s. I was in the back, feeling as nauseous as I am right now.

He looked so ugly with his big smile and his yellow teeth. He laughed with his fat hand squeezing her right tit. “I knew you’d come around, you’re a sluuuut.” He was so drunk his pores spewed vodka.

But she was brilliant. She didn’t say a word. He was always easy to piss off and it never served any good to talk back to him. She just drove and drove as his hand clumsily climbed and slipped all over her.

I felt sick to my stomach so I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Don’t you fucking throw up in here,” She said.

Dad thought she was talking to him and he grabbed the hair on the back of her head. “Don’t you… tell me… whuuuttudoo.” Spit flew out of his mouth as he spoke. Some of it landed in her hair, but she didn’t seem to care. She was so calm.

I held my breath as we approached the trailhead. This was it, I thought. The end of him. No more late night visits. No more cold glares from Mom. 

She made sure to wipe her prints off the vodka bottle and rub his fat fingers over it. She pressed his hand around it and told him to drink. 

We climbed the trail. 

She made him drink a little vodka every time we stopped for a break. 

I wanted to rest at the meadow. But he would pass out there. 

She laughed and skipped to the edge of the peak, looking over her shoulder at him. “Come on, baaabbbyy,” she called, as if he were a puppy.

He stumbled after her, falling twice. The grunts he made reminded me of the sound a pig makes when it’s happy and eating its slop.

He didn’t scream as we pushed him over the edge. All she had to do was tell him she dropped her shoe down there. And he believed her. “I’ll get it,” he said, leaning forward.

He didn’t make a sound. Not a single fucking sound. He just dropped. And he took all his sins with him.

She looks at me now. She has both my hands locked in with hers and she holds them up to her shoulders. Her eyebrows lift high as she smiles. “We’re going to fly.”

This is it. We made him pay for his sins. 

And now here we are. 

Here I am. 

She frowns at me. “Please say it,” she whispers. 

“Hello,” I say. “I’m you.”

“I love you,” she says. 

And we fly.