Citrus | ONC 2024 ✔️

11: All Bittersweet

I gripped Mathew's hands harder by the second, crushing them slowly like tree roots pushing their way deeper into the earth... Mathew's hands the core and the space between, air, not soil. Except, that doesn't work. There was no space between our palms, yet the Earth's core and plant's roots were lives apart. The fiery center couldn't help or hurt if it wanted to. Maybe the thing was a raging windmill of fire, but the thing never set another thing ablaze.

"I missed you." My grip loosened, but my throat constricted like every time before an all too familiar memory pulled me under.

Mathew paused. His chest rose and fell quicker than before, like he was in a desperate race for oxygen. A sad smile graced his pursed features, and he swallowed back the tumult of words tumbling through his mind. That's what I imagined, at least. He used to tell me to swallow my anger whole, walk away, calm down, and come back to talk after an argument. Where had the process been tonight? Today? Whatever time it was on the twenty-fifth?

Simply, I was the thing being swallowed whole, the fire engulfing me.

Begging, his eyes were begging me to just not.

Letting go felt wrong. I needed to say something more, explain how and why and what happened. He needed to know... I wanted say something that meant something, but nothing substantial came to mind. There was only the pricking of an idea. As I stared into Mathew's moistened eyes, the thought became clearer...

I hate you because I love you, and you hurt me. Now I hurt you. It didn't make it better, and I'm sorry.

"I should..." Mathew cleared his throat.

"Don't." My fingers tightened around his hands once more. "Please."

He squeezed my hands back reassuringly, his eyebrows drawing in and his jaw falling slack. "I'm not going anywhere..." Another word fell through the cracks of normal speech. The fragmented end of his statement stuttered in my ears, echoing its existence. The word, again. I"m not going anywhere again.

The fire gained a new breath of life. Branches snapped in the race of the stormy wind.

"It was..." My mind ran rampant, trying to transfer thoughts into real vocal words. "It was wrong saying that."

"What?" Immediate confusion slapped me in the face, followed by the abrasive pound of understanding.

My lips moved again, my eyes closing. "I was wrong."

That was it. I was a flimsy stem, once swaying in the gusty weather, consumed in flames, and now bleeding a thick green. Chlorophyll wasn't thicker than orange juice. In fact, the pigment was soluble in water. The stuff would dissolve in the sugary orange water before I could blink, notice the changes in myself while rain trickled down the very stem threading the green into the liquid.

I didn't realize I was crying until the pad of Mathew's thumb brushed against my cheek.

Through a stained lens, I stared at him, tears burning in his eyes too.

"I'm sorry." My voice cracked.

The water hose officially broke.

There was so much to be sorry about. I was sorry I had said anything. I was sorry I had hurt him. I was sorry for the burnt bridges and time spent loathing his existence in my life. I wanted to feel sorry for all the death painting the hospital in dreary neutrals, dried stains molding my surroundings into their current permanent state. Then Morgan, I was sorry to see him dying and only staring at the flat lined machine, listening to the long beep and never prying my feet from the earth.

Fully embracing anything was never near my idea of this in and out trip. There had been no fight or car crash or imminent death in my previous vision. Except, it was there, and I could do nothing but sit and watch the fire rage, feeling all but there. In the all too familiar isolation, I would stand in the midst of a forest of people, waiting, as usual.