"Shane Mason."
"And finally I am here, standing right infront of you."
It came out more like a question when Derek read the initials engraved on the tombstone in the middle of the barn.
SHANE MASON
1990 - 2014
"May the soul of yours find peace above, in the heaven."
He gaped like a fish who has been flung out of the water while staring back at the tombstone encrusted right above the grave at the centre of the barn. The truth that just has impended on him was not quite what he expected. Dead? He found himself throttled with just the mere thought of the loss of someone so dear to one's life. He know this feeling, the feeling of loss.
A whimper caught his attention and diverted it back to the girl, sitting with her legs pulled to her chest hugging them and whimpering slowly.
He looked down at Iris and felt a sudden ache in his heart. She had ducked her head into her lap and was sobbing lightly causing her shoulder to quiver.
He stared down at Iris and thought of all the times she had mentioned Shane along with everyone, who perhaps had known him, they talked about him with hope, with the certainty of his return. Like he is gone to a place from where he would return someday. But he will not, he is Dead.
He found his body going numb, losing a person cannot hurt less. Not even after a year or a century. It keeps boring into your heart like a prickle keeps reminding you about the emptiness in your life. You can't outrun it, it's just you start living your life with it, accepting it as a part of your life, accepting it as a beautiful memory of someone who had now gone.
But Iris hasn't even accepted it and that's what has been an obstacle, the chaos, all along. She is conflicted with it.
Derek's eyes moistened while gazing at Iris. He wanted to envelope her into his warmth but just couldn't find himself doing it right now. She had to go through it by herself, the stage of acceptance is harder but necessary.
He sat beside her and looked back to the tombstone in confusion, he never wanted to meet someone this much like he wanted to meet this guy, the guy that had imprinted his whole existence on others head with this much love, that they are reluctant to let him go.
"Who---"
"I met him when I was sixteen."
Iris's voice broke his reverie and pulled him into the reality.
He turned to look at Iris and his eyes softened with longing and love.
"It was a New Year Eve, when I saw him for the first time. Even with all the chattering and clattering around me, I could feel something indefinable in his presence, something that made my heart melt with the warmth that had been radiating from him. He was serene but chaotic in a way that you wanted to plunge yourself into that chaos and become a part of it. Alluring, it was. I was sixteen. All that thing made my head pound. I never felt like that, I have never felt anything that strong in someone's presence. It was my first."
A small laugh escaped her throat, "...and the most ironic part was that we didn't talk. We just stood there in the cold, gazing at the sky and maybe hoping and wishing for something.
"But as the midnight came near and the countdown started and nearly ended, he turned, turned to look at me with those blazing eyes, with that mere look there was something in my heart that ached. They were warm but cold, happy but sad. They were a symphony of emotions that was twirling in him something that grasp you and shake you from the reality and take you to the world that seems impossible to exist. They were simply beautiful. And I knew what I needed to wish for that year -happiness. Happiness for this soul."
Iris looked back to the grave,
"After the party, I got to know that the guy's name is Shane and it was him who threw the party along with a friend of mine. He didn't live here but in London with his mother, he just came here to see his father and decided to threw a party as his father had to go somewhere.
"What ever it was. However it happened. It was something that I couldn't put my mind off from. I used to think about him sometimes when I was looking at sky. I never saw him after that night, I searched for him on Facebook and tried to know about him but he was just a guy for people but for me he was someone more."
Iris unclaspped the chain and held it in her palm,
"Time flew by and it was already summer, whole six months after that incident. Life happened and I got busy in school with friends, living life until one day. We went to the nearest café and he was there, sitting solemnly with a book and a coffee, he looked at me and smiled..."
Iris turned to look Derek and a soft smile crept on her face,
"And my heart just leaped right out of my chest. I mean that smile was just breathtaking. And that was the beginning of everything."
She stood up slowly facing the grave,
"And since then my life changed. I never knew what it's like to have someone in your life who makes you feel nervous and comfortable altogether. He made my heart go frantic yet there was something in his presence that used to give me solace too. I was falling for him and he, for me. He was my first and I intended for him to be my last too."
"He transferred himself to my school and we had our final year, full of memories. Everything was just prefect like it came out of a book. The books I grew up reading or the books my mom wrote. Everything was how I wanted it to be- just perfect. And planned."
A tear fell from her eyes but she cleaned it before it could slip off,
"It was just right before our college when he proposed and I said yes. Maybe we were rushing but we were in love and everything seemed plausible. He became my world, my Sun, my Moon, my Universe. Everything."
She choked and a whimper left her throat, "But I never knew it would all crumble down one day.
It was after five years of engagement that we decided to get married. Everything was falling right in it's place like I wished for. Right before six weeks of our marriage, I got to know I was pregnant. I couldn't ask for anything more. Loving fiancée, a baby, friends and family- everyone around me happy and loving. Everything was fine except I never knew it wasn't meant to last forever."
She turned to look at Derek,
"Have you ever seen your life crumbling down? I have seen it, right in front of my eyes and all I did was just stand their and see. I tried to run, to grasp it before it all turned into dust but I found myself stuck in the place.
"My parents died in an accident while they were coming to surprise me before my wedding. My child died when I was going to see my dead parents and so did Shane when it was me who suppose to be dead. On our way to the hospital where my parents were kept, I hyperventilated and started bleeding, it was a miscarriage my body couldn't able to handle that much stress. Upon seeing this Shane panicked that caused our car to miss it balance and we got hit with fence on the highway. I had a concussion and Shane just had some minor injury."
She gulped hard and clenched her eyes closed,
"And you know what's the funny part. We tried to fight it, the destiny. When I woke up from the slumber I found Shane sitting beside me holding my hand and praying. I never saw him pray ever but there he was praying for me. As soon as his gaze reached to mine, he broke down, he broke down the tears, those words started babbling out of his mouth and the only thing that made sense that moment was that he wanted marry me right away."
Iris smiled and shook her head, "We got married in a church of the hospital. I walked down the aisle on the stretcher, all my pain subdued right away when my gaze fell on the guy standing at the end of it. I never saw him wanting anything this much. He always been the subtle kind of person but that day he was something else, someone else. Maybe he knew that this won't last forever. Maybe he knew that there is no forever for us, maybe so he wanted to make that moment our forever."
"As soon as I was shifted back into the room, I saw him walking towards me with that breathtaking smile but something in him was not right. The moment ceased when I saw the terror in his eyes, his smile faltered and the next thing I remember was him lying on a floor with bleeding nose, ears and mouth. The Doctors hurried there way to him and the last thing I saw was him lying on a table just opposite to mine, dead."
Iris turned to look Derek with anguish and hurt in her eyes,
"It was me about Doctor was in doubt, It was me who was meant to die, it was me on whom the doctors had given up but I woke up, I woke up and then I saw him die. Right in front of my eyes, I saw him die. I just couldn't do anything, nothing. I just lay there hoping it to be a dream but it was a reality, a reality that broke myself apart."
She inhaled deeply and took a step forward and rested her hand on the marble grave. "You were my everything. You are my everything. And with you you took a part of me, which is gone too."
"And I am holding on to this..." She said looking at the wedding band, "...with hope that, one day I will see you again, sitting alone in some café reading your favorite book with that smile and this all will vanish away taking away all the pain from my life.
And now the two years has passed and here I am, still clinging onto you. Hoping and wishing that you would return. But I know it won't happen because you are not gone, you are dead. I have been holding on to you all this time but not anymore, not anymore. Acceptance has it stages, I accepted my heart. I unfeathered myself from the burden of the guilt that weighing me down. I accepted the truth but still things seem incomplete because the last stage of acceptance is you and it is yet to be acquired. So here I am standing with no more hope of your return because it is not possible. Here I am standing with the memories of the time we shared and the love we had. Here I am standing, saying goodbye. Goodbye Shane, may you find happiness that you truly deserved." She gently placed the wedding band on the grave and took a step back,
"I am let-letting you go..." She murmured and turned her back to the grave while simultaneously facing Derek. Undoubtedly he had heard her murmur those words, it could be easily concluded seeing the expression he had on his face. As if she was the only wonder in the world he had left to see and that too, was now in front of his eyes.
He looked at her with so much love that it was impossible for her to not oversee his happiness reflecting in his eyes. So does the Love he has for her was visible in his eyes too.
The Love he had been trying to suppress since long. He felt guilty to have stepped in the equation just after one of her big heart wrenching confessions, but he was glad to be there for her to vent herself out on him and to be freed.
Iris looked in his eyes and saw it too. Everything. His like for her. His love for her. His happiness.
'Happiness was only meant to be in fairy tales.'
Her thoughts invaded her conscience again, popping themselves just in time for her to not step in Derek's embrace. A conflicting emotion, unidentifiable, was there in her heart somewhere. In her mind, not allowing her to take a step forward but her heart wanted this embrace since long.
She took a step and this one simple step had Derek feel a heavy shift in his heart and his breath got hitched.
I'm not getting the word here, see to it
If only that was possible!
♥★♥
Ola..♥
Sorry for the late update. :) was busy with some home stuff.
I am fine and hope that you guys are too. ♥
Btw this chapter is a pre-birthday present to @kulzum25 ♥
Happy Birthday luv...★
In advance. :D
I have been reading "Gone with the wind." And the descriptions in that are just awesome. ♥ If you guys are into classic novels, do give it a read.
QOTD: How many of you are enjoying Pokémon Go?
Have fun until next time. Keep reading and enjoy life.
XoXo ♥
_autumngirl_