Clair De Lune

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It's hard to see when you've still got the smoke in your eyes and the bullet in your brain.

He's sobbing into his hands, his mind is a mess. Everything is in shambles and he isn't sure how the pieces clicked together.

The hospital was cold just as the vehicle had been. Just as both of their hands had been. Just as death had been when they sauntered in and swept him away.

Just as death had been when they reached out a thin, pale hand, so translucent that you could see bone, and touched it to his soul.

He remembers falling in love. Everything had felt like a wobbly bike, he was never sure when it was to fall. He remembers halloween seven years ago. They'd eaten so much candy they'd gotten sick and that was the first time they'd ever kissed. It was sloppy and awkward and rushed. They didn't know what they were doing, they'd just let their bodies take them away to the quick press of lips. The feeling of the corner of his mouth lifting. The feeling of their teeth clashing. The feeling of his smile.

It's the summer before eleventh grade and they're at a carnival. They'd shared two cliché ferris wheel kisses and three bags of cotton candy.

He remembers wanting to say it then. That he was in love. They call it falling in love for a reason. You truly are falling.

It's uncontrollable and terrifying. There's no soft landing, because in the end everyone ends up getting hurt. There is only clasped hands and holding on for dear life as you plummet. And then there is only shattered bones and bruises and a short supply of bandages and scotch tape to put yourself back together. There is only regretful smiles that attempt to hide your fractured soul and the tears that gather in your eyes.

He is falling helplessly and he knows how this will end but he cannot help but to be caught in the moment and caught in the way he smiles. He is wonderfully, completely, fantastically, tragically in love ad there is nothing he can do about it.

They're in their first year of college and everything is passing in a blur. He's carrying boxes up a set of stairs leading to their apartment. Their apartment. He's never felt more at home so far from what he'd considered home his entire life. There is a grey band on his finger, closer to black in colour. It's not official, there's no documents or legality about it. But maybe one day there would be. And they were hopeful for that day but until then a small ceremony in this very forest would do.

He remembers the first time they'd made love. They'd taken a honeymoon to their own apartment. Everything was soft touches and slow movements. Gentle lips and hands and tongues. Tanned and pale skin contrasting, tattoos clashing, teeth and flesh, toes curling.

He remembers the day of his death. He'd woken up to the smell of pancakes and toast. He was in the kitchen and his eyes shined in the morning light. They were in their third year of college and they were both so young, but they were madly in love and as he stared at him from the hall he was reminded of that. He'd grown so used to seeing him every morning. It was domestic. There weren't fireworks anymore. There was the slow burn of a fire. There was something more comfortable than fireworks and sparks and butterflies. There was peace.

Josh turns around and smiles. Whe he leaves he kisses him goodbye. It's too chaste for a goodbye kiss but it wouldn't have been if it weren't their last goodbye kiss. He gets a call from his mother and everything becomes blood blood blood.

This was two days ago.

It has been two days since Josh was shot and killed. He was at work. This area was dangerous and they knew that, but it's all they could afford for the moment and nothing had mattered except the feel of their fingertips against one another.

They say he'd gone on break and walked outside to sit down. The sun was setting, Josh was getting off of work in an hour. He would be home in a hour and thirty minutes. He was supposed to be home in an hour and thirty minutes.

Tyler's last class had ended two hours ago and he'd been at home, getting the stuff for them to bake a cake. Their anniversary was in two days.

He is sitting down when he gets the call from the paramedic. She's telling him to meet them at the hospital. And that Josh had been shot and is bleeding out.

He's making his way to the hospital as fast as he can. His fingers are wrapped around the steering wheel just a little too tightly. His foot is pressed to the gas pedal just a little too harshly.

The hospital is cold. That is all he can remember apart from blood and the mutterings of the nurses and doctors making sad attempts at saving Josh's life.

They're not sad because they're not trying. On the contrary, they're putting their all into it. They're sad because they're fruitless. And everyone in the room knows that.

When his heartbeat stops so does Tyler's.

"Time of death: 6:53 pm." Not a single word is heard by him after that. He just stares at Josh. Josh whose eyes are open and glossed over, whose hands are pale and beginning to lose warmth. Whose warmth had kept him safe through winters and storms and distress. Whose laugh and smile never failed to brighten his day.

He would never have any of these things again.

He closes Josh's eyes. He watches as those eyes disappear behind eyelids for the last time. There was never any way for him to describe the colour before but now it floods his mind and it's all he can think about.

Josh's eyes are the colour of the earth after it rains, they're the colour of old leather, of coffee at five am. They're PC947, dark umber. They're 19-0912 TPX, chocolate brown.

He looks out of the window at the sky.

Everyone likes to hear that their loved one went on a dreary day. They want pouring rain so that they can speak of how suiting it is that even the skies would weep for the loss of this person.

Tyler was thankful that he didn't have to say that. Because Josh deserved better than some cliché, romance movie bullshit. And that's exactly what they got.

Josh went out with a bang. The sky is the prettiest he's ever seen it. Shades of lilac, and light pink, and orange, and yellow, and reds, and baby blue, all somehow blended together perfectly and set in sharp contrast to one another at the same time. Even still, it could not compare to Josh. The birds are singing songs of praise, beautiful melodies never before imitated, never before sung. Even still, their voices were not as heavenly as his. And then the stars began to show. They shined for him, brighter than ever before. A dance of twinkling lights, dull in comparison to the lights of his eyes.

There was not a thing on this earth, not a thing in the sky, not a thing in the heavens, that could compare to Josh. And yet the world thought itself better than mourning. The world thought itself worthy to rejoice in his life because it'd put on its best appearances. The world did not stop for Josh, it continued spinning for him.

The world refused to grieve because that would never be good enough. The world celebrated his life. It celebrated all Josh had ever been. The world would grieve for him another day.

And so now he sits alone in the very forest they performed their ceremony. He remembers what the police had told him.

"The boy has been apprehended. I apologize for your loss."

His cheeks are dry now. He'd run out of tears to cry and instead sat there heaving up his everything.

"We're not sure why he shot Mr. Dun, but we are looking into it. Right now, it appears as though the boy had wanted his ring and wallet. The boy had his wallet, so we believe he may have been shot after refusing to give him the ring."

His entire body quakes. He runs his fingertips over the thin band. His hand closes around it and he has the overwhelming urge to find that river and chuck it straight into the water.

There's a cake burning in his oven at home. Josh's mother is alseep on the couch, his own mother somewhere far away.

He runs the back of his hand over his face. Here in the forest he begins to find peace once more.

"Happy anniversary, Josh."