No Explanation

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Xavier groaned in dismay. Has his alarm always been this loud? He flailed his arms wildly trying to subdue the siren. Cracking his eyes open, he registered the pink walls with posters of cliche 2000s movies and Disney memorabilia. That was when he registered the blaring alarm as an iPhone, not the soothing Samsung jingle he was accustomed to.

The alarm ceased as Xavier rolled over to see blonde hair with pink highlights strewn across the black pillowcase. His girlfriend, Sam, was a different kind of beautiful, changing her hair color with the seasons and doing everything she could to look different than the stereotypical sorority girl. He had fallen in love with her spontaneity when he first met her their freshman year and now, three years later, he still loved her for her adventurous spirit. He smiled slightly, thinking they must have fallen asleep together after last night’s party. A party he had been way too drunk to remember anything about. Though, surprisingly, he hadn’t the slightest hangover.

But when Sam sat up and turned to face him, his smile faltered. Dried mascara covered her cheeks and red blotchy spots made her face look puffy. But despite the evidence of tears, what scared Xavier the most was the look in her eyes. 

She looked like death.

Xavier started to ask what was wrong, but before he opened his mouth, she stopped looking at him and headed for her bathroom, leaving the door ajar.

Xavier debated for a few minutes. Should he ask her why she was upset? Or did she need time alone? Was it something he had done last night?

He tried to shake his head, but it felt oddly light. He really couldn’t remember anything.

“Hey, baby?” he whispered, his voice feeling unnaturally breathy this morning.

Sam walked out of the bathroom and looked at him sitting on the bed, but failed to meet his eyes. She had washed her face and changed her clothes but didn’t put on her usual full face of makeup. The baggy sweatshirt swallowing her thin frame strongly opposed the May heat that waited for them outside the door.

“Baby, did I-” Xav started again, but Sam grabbed her backpack and walked out the door. Xavier slipped through behind her and started pleading as she went down the stairs of her dorm building.

“Baby, if I did something wrong, please tell me. Honestly, I don’t remember anything from last night.” Sam stopped in her tracks and Xav halted before he toppled into her. But Sam didn’t turn around. She just wiped her eyes and opened the door. 

Xavier scrunched his eyebrows. “Sammie, come on. This isn’t like you. Why are you angry at me?” Xavier tried to reach for her but hesitated when he saw his friend Nate skating towards them on the sidewalk.

After seeing them, Nate flipped his skateboard up and strutted up to Sam with purpose. Xav was just about to greet his friend with a fist bump when Nate wrapped his arms around Sam.

“How are you holding up?” Nate whispered into her hair, his gruff tone softer than Xavier had ever heard.

What the hell?

Xav reached for Nate, ready to pull him off of his girlfriend. “Dude, what the actual f-” 

He felt a sudden chill as his hand went through Nate’s shoulder.

Xavier looked at his hand like the traitor it was and tried again. His hand seemed to dissolve into little molecules as they came in contact with Nate’s leather jacket and then reformed when he removed it. 

Xavier’s hands shook as he reached to grab Sam but came up with a feeling of emptiness. He looked down at his fingers and panicked as his skin seemed to reflect the sunlight. He touched his legs and arms but felt less solid, more pliable, and unnatural. As he touched his chest, he realized despite his panic he wasn’t breathing faster. 

He wasn’t breathing at all.

No… I can’t be…

“As can be expected,” Sam sniffed. 

“I know how hard this must be for you…” Nate whispered as he rubbed small circles on Sam’s back… slowly working his way down. “If you want… you can come to my place tonight, and I can help you forget about it.”

Before Xavier reached his hands out in an attempt to strangle his best friend, Sam pushed Nate away with her full body weight and kicked his kneecap. “You think you know how hard this is? You can’t fucking know how hard this is for me, Nate!” She turned her body away from Nate as she crossed her arms, tears running down her heated cheeks. “And seriously? Hitting on me? Xav is your best fucking friend!”

“Yeah, he was! But now he’s-”

“He’s what, Nate?”

“He’s fucking dead, Sam!”

Xavier watched as Sam seethed in front of him. He watched and waited and begged her to say it wasn’t true. To say this is all some dumb prank and they can see him standing beside them. To say that they were ignoring him as punishment for something stupid he did last night. To say anything.

But the silence dragged on and Sam didn’t deny it.

“Just fuck off, Nate,” Sam finally whispered as she turned and stormed back to her dorm room. Xavier could only stand in shock but the farther Sam walked away, the more Xav’s chest ached. His stagnant heart still ceased to beat but felt tethered to the love of his life. So he left his former best friend clutching his knee and turned around to follow his girlfriend. 

Xavier stayed silent the whole walk to Sam’s dorm, no longer trying to beg her for an explanation. Instead, he tried with his entire being – if he could even be called that anymore – to remember what happened the night before. 

He remembered picking Sam up from her dorm. The beautiful black lacey dress she wore. How they danced at Kappa Theta Delta with the other juniors and seniors. Taking shots and playing drinking games.

But then it was just black. He didn’t remember leaving the party.

Getting so drunk that he blacked out was unlike him. Why couldn’t he remember anything?

What had caused him to become… whatever this was?

A ghost? Spirit? Was he just having a terrible nightmare?

That had to be it.

Sam slammed open her dorm room, Xavier barely slipping in before considering that the door would probably just go through him anyway.

Because, apparently, that’s what happened in this nightmare.

Sam walked up to her bedside table and picked up a picture frame. It held a photo of them from the last Halloween when they had gone to a college party cross-dressed as Bonnie and Clyde. Sam’s smile beamed underneath her cheap, taped mustache and Xavier’s wig was crooked as he wrapped Sam in a side hug. 

Sam ran the ghost of her fingers along Xavier’s cheek in the photo. Her eyes teared up and she sniffed. Xavier reached out his arms to comfort her.

A scream made him jump when Sam slammed the picture frame on the ground. Glass shattered, and Sam snatched the photo, quickly tearing it to shreds.

She burst into tears and collapsed on the floor, falling through Xavier’s outstretched arms. 

“How could you do this to me?” Sam wailed. “How could you leave me alone?”

And Xav knew it wasn’t a dream. He was in hell.

How could this happen? Xavier thought. He was so frustrated he couldn’t think straight. He wanted his blood to rush, his heart to pound, his breaths to be short and sporadic.

But there was nothing. He felt nothing. He felt cold and airy and powerless as he watched his girlfriend curl up on the hardwood floor, not caring that glass surrounded her.

Sam’s phone rang and Xavier helplessly watched as she dragged herself off the floor and to her bed, crawled into it, and answered the call, putting it on speaker so she could lie face down in her pillow.

“Yeah,” she croaked out, voice muffled.

“Hey, Sam.” Vanessa. Sam’s closest friend and former roommate.

“What do you want?” Sam asked curtly.

There was a pause. Xav was sure Vanessa didn’t know what to say. What do you say when someone’s significant other just died?

Damn, Xav closed his eyes, I’m the reason she’s like this.

“I just… wanted to see how you were doing?” Vanessa chose her words slowly.

“How the fuck do you think I’m doing?” Sam snapped.

Xavier flinched at her tone.

Vanessa sucked in a breath. “Look… no matter what I say, it won’t be the right thing. I can’t say or do anything to help you… I just want you to know I’m here.”

Sam scoffed. “Fine, whatever. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

Silence.

“If that’s what you want, Sammie.”

The tone chimed, indicating the end of the phone call.

Xavier watched as Sam cried herself to sleep. All alone.

~

This routine continued for weeks as people called to check on Sam. Vanessa called at least once a day. Sam’s parents called occasionally. Nate called once.

Sam hadn’t even answered that one. 

All the while, Xavier watched as his girlfriend withered away, never leaving her room and continuing to spiral. Not that Xav was much better. He found that his body – spirit? ghost? — was somehow tied to Sam and he couldn’t leave her, not that he wanted to. He had been grappling with all the newfound information, and he just wanted to scream. All he could think about was how much he wouldn’t do with her. How unfair this was.

They would never get married. Never have kids. Never kiss again. Never grow old together.

He couldn’t help but feel cheated and angry. He wasn’t even sure with whom. Himself? God? Does a diety even exist? At this point, he didn’t care. He was just angry at how much he lost.

Sam was going through similar emotions, switching from screaming to being suddenly calm to crying for hours. And it was a whole new kind of torture for Xav to watch her go through this and be unable to help her.

At some point in the last few days, he began to wonder why he was still there. This wasn’t how he imagined living out eternity, albeit he had never really believed in an afterlife. 

This was much worse than he could have imagined.

He started thinking about whether or not he was a good person. What if he had done more or been kinder?

He started begging whatever deity there was – if there was one – to give him another chance, let him start again so he could be better. He made promises to change if he could just help Sam in this moment.

Currently, she was bending over the toilet for the third time this week, hurling up the little food she managed to eat this morning. Xav briefly recalled the last time she had been sick, when he had held her hair back for her and nursed her back to health. And even now he was here, but she didn’t have the comfort of knowing.

Despite being unable to hear anything Xav said, Sam would randomly act like she was speaking to him while looking at pictures on her phone. Saying things that ranged anywhere from “How could you leave me like this, asshole?” to “I’m so sorry” to “Please, come back.”

Every time he responded, he begged the questionable deity to let her hear his response just once, but his words fell upon deaf ears and they continued this half-life existence they were in together.

Sam’s phone rang for the second time today, and Xav watched the consideration of whether or not to answer it run through Sam’s eyes. By the fifth ring, she swiped right and waited silently for the daily check-in.

“Hey, girl,” Vanessa said sympathetically. When Sam didn’t respond, she continued. “I left some chocolates outside your door. Lindor. Your favorite.” 

Sam stayed silent, as per usual.

After a pregnant pause, Vanessa cleared her throat. “I know it’s not usually your scene, but some of our friends are getting together tonight at the cat cafe downtown if you want to come. I could pick you up if you don’t want to drive.”

Sam stared up at the ceiling.

“Look, Sam,” Vanessa started again. “I know you’re grieving, but it’s been over a month and you haven’t come out of your room. We’re all worried... I’ve been trying to give you some space, but I want you to know-”

“That’s what he said to me, too,” Sam interrupted, face a blank slate.

“What?” Vanessa asked.

“He said he would pick me up that night. He went to the party because I wanted to go. He drove me to my dorm and I told him to go home because I had to wake up early the next day.” Vanessa didn’t even breathe as Sam paused. She and Xav both knew Sam had never talked about what happened that night. “If I had invited him to stay, he would still be here. I keep looking at my bed – the place he should’ve been the morning after it happened. I’m the reason he’s not here. I knew he was wasted, and I made him go home.”

Only after Vanessa was sure Sam was done did she dare to say, “You know that’s not true, right? It’s not your fault that this happened.”

“It is,” was all Sam said for a long time. “It’s all my fault.”

And with that whispered confession, Sam hung up.

Xav watched with trepidation as his girlfriend lay on her bed, vacant of all emotion. Suddenly, she sat up and swung her body over the side of her comforter.

From the corner of her room, Xav watched as she searched through the piles of trash and dirty clothes on the floor. Finding what she had been looking for, she grabbed it and went to her bathroom. Xav stood up to follow and watched Sam study her reflection in the mirror.

Black-rimmed, bloodshot eyes stared back at her like two voids with an emptiness that was deeper than any other emotion she had ever felt.

Slowly, Sam raised her right hand holding a piece of glass from the picture frame she had broken weeks ago. Xav reached for her just as she stabbed the jagged shard into her wrist. He screamed with her as she dragged the shard up her arm vertically until her hand shook so much she let go. The cut went up past her elbow and blood poured out as Sam stumbled and fell against her shower wall.

“NO!” Xav knew she couldn’t hear, but that didn’t stop his screams from tearing through his body as he tried to reach for her, failing with every attempt at trying to hold her. “Please, no, Sam…” 

Xav watched as Sam’s eyes unfocused and her body shook, fighting to keep her alive despite losing her will to live. 

“Sam, please…” Xav put the ghost of his hand onto her face, envisioning the warmth of her body and wishing so badly he could hold her in this moment. “Sam… it wasn’t your fault. Nothing was your fault. Bad things happen, and I can’t tell you why because it is fucking unfair.” Sam’s eyes closed slowly. “But that doesn’t mean you give up. You have so much ahead of you. Don’t sacrifice that for me. I might be gone, but you’re still here, and I hate that I can’t be by your side physically. But I’m here. I’m always right here.”

Sam’s body shifted slightly as she turned her head, and Xav looked at her face, avoiding the pooling blood. He watched as, for once, her eyes seemed to see him. At that moment they focused, taking in him in his entirety in a way she hadn’t done since he woke up in her bed that fateful morning.

“Xav?” Sam whispered. She struggled to stay awake, but the shock on her face was clear. 

“Yeah.” Xav could hear the tremble in his voice and knew there was so much he wanted to say to her, but he only said the most important thing. “Everything you’ve gone through – the denial, anger, tears, guilt – I’ve experienced it all with you. And I can’t answer your questions. I don’t have the answers. I don’t know why it’s my time and why I have to go. I just know that I have to and that you don’t. Don’t die for me. Live for you.”

Sam’s eyes fluttered and her body trembled. “I don’t want a life without you,” she pleaded.

“I was a part of your life and as long as you remember me, you won’t have to live without me.” Xav leaned forward and brushed his lips against Sam’s forehead, expecting nothing but coming in slight contact. 

She was dying.

“Just hold on, Sam”

Sam nodded and tried to force her eyes open as she whispered, “I will always love you, Xav.”

“Me too, love,” Xav replied.

Suddenly, the door crashed open in the other room.

“Sam!” Vanessa rushed in and took Sam into her arms, running through Xav’s form. “Just hold on, Sam!”

Xav took a step back and nodded to Sam who returned it in understanding. He felt lighter than normal but in the last second, he touched Sam’s hand and saw flashes before his eyes. 

Sam going to the hospital and making it out okay.

Sam spending time with her friends.

Graduation.

Dating again.

Having a kid.

Leading a successful career.

Living the end of her days, never alone.

Xav let go of her hand and smiled, the first genuine smile since his passing. And when he looked at Sam, he saw it reflected on her face.

And in the last moments before he faded, he whispered one last thing to her. 

“You’re gonna be okay.”