Love In Actuality

21: Aaron

“Should I call an ambulance?” Laila practically screamed across the beach

as I carried Kyree in. She had been so close…but she was alive. The question

was, why had she done it?

“No. She’s fine. Just upset.” And suicidal. But that was the truth- Kyree’s

eyes stared up at the sky. I watched her stomach rise up and then fall, assured

myself that everything about her state right now was fixable. Fixable, as in, we

could deal with this here and now, without paramedics trying to shove tubes

down her throat. 

“Are you mad?” Kyree asked, still inspecting the clouds with a blank face.

In the twenty seconds it had taken me to reach her, adrenaline pumping through

my veins, a million things had run through my brain, from disgust to anger to pity.

And, right now, the only thing I was sure about was that I loved her way too much

to be mad. All I wanted to do was make her feel better, be better. 

“I’m not mad, Ree. I just want to help you. Do you understand? My life

won’t ever be the same without you.” I wasn’t sure what I was trying to get at.

Nothing was making sense in my brain. It seemed like her thought process was a

little unwired at the moment, too. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” She knew what I meant. We reached the beach, but Laila kept her

distance as I set Kyree on the towel. The sun would have us dry in minutes. 

“It wasn’t you…it was everything else. I thought it would be better, and

you’d move on. Nobody would have to deal with me anymore if I didn’t exist.” 

“I couldn’t move on, Ree.”

My comment sparked something in her. “But you will!” she exclaimed.

“Eventually, you will move on, leave me, and then I’ll be in this same position. I’d

rather just get over it now instead of pulling an Ama.” 

“You don’t have to pull an anything. It gets better, Ree. Trust me. Please.

Everything turns out okay in the end, right? That’s just life. We’ll find help, get

you to see that. Just, please, hang in there, for me. Can you do that?”“Will you promise? Promise that I’ll never feel like I have to do this again?”

She looked at me, eyes dripping with sincerity. They weren’t a dark cave

anymore- they were a tunnel that I could see a light through. 

“Yes. I promise.”

“Then yes.” 

Life, in actuality, was more of a test without a right answer than anything

else. Sometimes you just have to find your own way to make it work. 

Our way was working just fine.