I Love You, Jerk Face

Chapter 44

Okay guys, deep breaths before you read this. Get the tissues ready and please dont hate me. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Here it is, the final chapter of Jerk Face.

Those last few ragged breaths were the best ones I had taken in years. His scent danced around me as I left the world. His blue eyes shining down at me. Those beautiful lips descending for a farewell kiss.

                My breathing stopped, heart shuttered and then finally stopped.

                “Agh,” the large breath I tried to suck in as I sat straight up caught in my throat, but I could not stop from trying to gulp down as much air as possible. I had felt it. Felt my heart stop. Felt his lips on mine.

                My arms crossed over my heaving chest until my fingers were brushing across swollen, chapped lips. I might as well have been dead.

                Two long months had passed since Grady’s party. Two agonizing months of seeing his face every day. Two horrible months of waking up just so I could see him. Two disgusting months of crying myself to sleep every night. Two long, agonizing, horribly disgusting months.

                Sweat had my clothes clinging to my skin, but I guess dying in your dreams has some affect. My hands were still shaking as I tried to move my hair away from my face, more air entered my lungs quickly.

                It had been so real. All of it.

                My breathing finally calmed, but my racing mind would not. I loved him and now it seemed that I knew I could never stop loving him. The sun streaming in through my skylight illuminated my empty walls. The dozens of pictures of our happy faces had been torn down one night with Jacque at my side. She had raged against him with me. Ignored him, little good it did, but it did serve to make me feel a little better.

                Nothing but chipping blue paint and even that reminded me of him. Being in his paint covered arms. A deep sigh did nothing to ease the pain the image conjured. All this pain. It seemed fitting that I had died in my dream, just like dream Grady said, “the body can’t live very long without its heart.”

                The words rang out in my ears. How true. My knees came against my chest, hoping the pressure would calm my beating heart as my eyes settled on the calendar. Not only had the last two months been painful, but they were awkward and honestly just too fast.

                July 25th had come all too soon. I would gladly go through all the heart wrenching pain again just to see his face, but he was gone now. The day was circled in a large red marker. Yet another thing he had done.

                “We’ve got the rest of our lives,” he had assured me, arms securely around me, “the few months we are apart will seem like nothing.”

                He was gone. Left early this morning my parents and brother in tow. Now he would be two hours away. I wouldn’t have to wake up every morning knowing he was downstairs eating breakfast. Or playing video games on my couch.

                My heart seized again, but pressing my hands against the loud beating did not deter it. Images of Grady flew through my head as I leaned back, trying desperately to stop the painful montage, but at the same time I never wanted it to end.

               I wanted the little life reel I had in those final moments of my dreams. The fleeting glimpse it had given me of what life would be like if we stayed together. Our long years together. The two beautiful children we would have; our daughter Cory after his mother and Theo our younger son. Bobby, our Labrador playing in the yard with them on the hot summers day while their father cuts the grass. A deep sigh left me.