Lightening, thunder, rain clouds as far as the eye can see, and yet, Amber still stands there. She stood on the dark beach, her arms wrapped around her shivering body. This was where it had all happened; where he told her he loved her. That was years ago, the memory still fresh in her mind. The whole memory of that night replayed in her dreams night after night, day after day. In the beginning it seemed a beautiful memory, but by the end it showed its true colors, a terrible disaster.
The memory itself was a beautiful disaster.
Sometimes she loved remembering that seventeen year old time, other times, she wanted to rip the memory away, let it be gone forever. But when she thought things like the latter, she remembered the way he held her, kissing her forehead and lowering his head down to her ear; "I love you", he whispered. She remembered the way his face lit up with happiness and relief when she whispered the words back. She remembered the way they slept in each other’s arms, lying safely on the beach. She remembered how in the morning, when the sun shined bright rays of light into her eyes, she jumped up and started skipping around. She remembered looking back to see him start to stand up. She remembered going a little farther down the beach so that he would chase her. She remembered looking back, seeing him standing straight up, when a loud crack filled the air and a rose sprouted from his chest. Only it was no rose. It was blood. His blood.
She remembered how he looked straight into her eyes, and fell to the ground, clutching his heart. She remembered sprinting as fast as her legs could take her and falling to the ground where he lay in pain. She remembered a small, distant, voice in the back of her head telling her to run, that whoever shot him was coming for her too, but she stayed. She stayed because she loved him, and he loved her. She stayed because she knew he was dying, and that she didn’t want the last thing for him to see was the love of his life running away, and because she didn’t want the last thing for him to feel to be heartbreak. She wanted it to be love. This is why she gently picked up his head and laid it in her lap. She made his pained eyes look up into hers, so that she could whisper these simple words,
"I have loved you from the beginning, and I still love you at the end, but I will love you forever, because death can never do us part, not with love like this in our hearts."
And with the last breath he would ever take, he would say the last words he will ever say;
"Amber, you’re my first and last and only love, and I will still love you, while I wait for you above. So every time you look up to see a storm a brew, it’s because I am mad at God for not letting me be with you."
With that he raised his head to kiss her, a kiss with enough passion to last a lifetime, which is exactly what it would have to do, because as she pulled away, dripping her tears on his face, he smiled one last time, and death filled his place.
Beautiful disaster.
Now as Amber stood on the dark beach, she looked up at the sky, to see a beautiful storm a brew. She smiled to herself as fresh tears mixed with the heavy raindrops falling onto her face. Her heart filled with warmth and excitement, as she looked up to the sky to say,
"Goodbye Earth. Brian, take me away."
And as Amber stood there, a sudden pain in her chest, she fell to the ground in a permanent rest.
In the morning a fisherman will find a seventy-two year old woman lying dead on the ground, and as the coroners come to take her away, they find a heart drawn into the sand next to her. No one knew how it had gotten there, for the tide would have washed it away had she done it the night before,
But Amber and Brian knew.
And as Amber’s casket is placed into the ground, rays of sun shined through the clouds, because each other they have found.
