Amaranth

13

        "I'm afraid."

        "Of what?"

        "That you'll stop visiting your mom and forget."

        "Jeez." He looked at her hard. "Look, she'd done some horrible things in the past but that doesn't change the fact that I’ll always love her. I might just visit a little less here and there because I have school coming up, but I’ll come back. I promise."

        She shook her head.

        "What's wrong?"

        She refused to tell him. It wasn't enough.

        "That's what they all say."

        "Who? What are you talking about?"

        "Don't promise me anything."

        "Amaranth," he groaned. She was impossible to understand sometimes.

        "It means immortality."

        "I don't understand." He had a feeling he knew where this was going, but he still refused to believe it.

        "I'll always be here. I just didn't know it then. I didn't know until you came along."

        "But why me? You said there were others."

        "They all said the same thing. You said the same thing. It's just I never realized it before. It’s the reason why I don’t know how to love."

        "Come on, it's easy. I'll show you."

        "Will you?"

        "Yes." He nodded. Absolutely freaking yes. "It's like sleeping to a really good dream, only that you don't wake up. I was scared to love after Mom died because I'd end up losing someone else, but I was wrong. You showed me how."

        "I think that's why I'm here."

        "What?" He felt like he was watching himself lose her slowly.

        "You're forgetting something else. I don't know how to dream."

        "You can try. Just shut your eyes and imagine. Imagine. Imagine love.” His tongue felt dry as he said those words, but he had to give it a shot because he was selfish after all. “Imagine me."

        She closed her eyes and tried. She tried some more before she blinked them open.

        “I can’t.” She didn’t know how to love or how to dream. Some things couldn’t be taught.

        “I’ll wait for you.”

        “No.” She shook her head, more determined than he.

        “I’ll wait for you. I promise.”

        “I don’t want you to do that.” He was losing her; what had once been a nightmare was becoming his reality. The air that had found its way in to give him life was now lodged in his throat, threatening to chock him before his windpipes swallowed it whole.

        “Why?”

        “Because then you won’t be able to move on, and then it’ll be too late.”

        He didn’t want to know, but he had to push forward. “Too late for what?”

        "Life,” she whispered.

__________

November 26, 2014