Page 14 of Raise Up, Heart
Cole has heard this through the grapevine, but Michael’s never mentioned it to him directly before. Michael doesn’t seem to be as messed up about his loss as Cole is over Damon, and he wonders how Michael healed so well. Probably because Michael has plenty of memories to indulge in, and not just lists and lists of regrets.
“How long ago?” Cole asks.
“Going on six years,” Michael says. “And it’s just like I told Emily—some days are harder than others. One day, I’m fine. And the next I’m having a hard time making it through. It gets easier and easier, though, to have those days when you remember the person you lost without letting it tear you apart.”
Cole’s heard this a dozen times, from so many people, and the only problem is that he doesn’t want to get to a place where losing Damon doesn’t tear him apart. In fact, he’s terrified of that day. On that day, he’s let Damon be truly dead.
Cole catches his breath at that thought, and his hand comes up to his mouth.
“You okay?” Michael asks again.
Cole nods. “Fine. Good. I need to get going, though.”
Michael smiles again, and says, “Sure thing, boss. I’m going to stop by Emily’s and see if I can get a late start on the date.”
“Good plan,” Cole says.
“Chin up,” Michael says. “We have important work to do. Keep that in mind.”
“I always do.”
“I know,” Michael agrees. “I find that completely impressive about you. How you really want to do something good with the insurance money he left you. I’m proud to work for you.”
Cole laughed softly, shaking his head. “You don’t need to flatter me. You’ve got the job.”
Michael shakes him gently by the shoulder. “I’m only telling you this because I don’t have to. See you tomorrow. I have a lady to beg forgiveness.”
Cole watches Michael cross the parking lot to climb into his car and waits until he’s pulling out of the lot to get into his own. He locks the doors and stares out into the dark around him. The edge of the parking lot is bordered with woods, and his eyes are drawn to a movement in the darkness there. Squinting, he thinks it’s a person. He stares, trying to make out more, but the shadow doesn’t move, and there’s no way that anyone could be that still.
Cole turns the engine over, and flips on the headlights. The beam hits a man standing squarely in front of the car, and Cole swears that time slows down, because the man—No, I don’t believe you—turns, his face registering surprise, and then time jolts again, and the man pivots, running directly into the woods behind the parking lot.
Cole jerks the car door open and runs after him. The sudden softness of grass under his shoes is springy and unsteady, and then the night gives way to whipping branches and leaves in his face. He’s pushing through, twisting his ankle in the tangles of downed limbs, trying to see in the dark, trying to hear over his own heart and the sound of his body thrashing through the woods, as he yells, “Damon!”
He screams it over and over, stumbling blind in the darkness. He falls to his knees at some point and covers his face with his hands. The night is dark, the woods are thick, and he can’t hear anything but his own sobs.
You never intendedthis. He was never supposed to know. Hell, if it comes to intent, then you lack it entirely. None of this is what you imagined when you promised Cole to always be there for him, to never leave him alone. You couldn’t have known what you would do to be by his side.
But this—this especially is a mistake. You know it even as you take the steps through the woods to kneel at Cole’s side. You know it as he flinches and then tackles you to the ground, wet tears on his cheeks brushing your own as he pins you. He puts his hands all over you, feeling your face, your body, and he’s saying, “Are you? Are you really? Damon?”
Your heart is pounding, and you can smell him, the scent of shampoo—not the same—and his own particular odor. His body is strong and warm against you. You feel hot and cold, shocked at yourself that you’ve done this, that you’ve taken this risk, without a plan, without anything but that restless need that compels you and has from the moment you died. Ever since you found yourself naked and terrified on a mattress in an unfamiliar cabin, you’ve been driven to stay, to watch, to govern: the need that arches over everything except the need to make Cole’s pain stop.
It’s so dark in the woods that you can still deny it all, providing you can break free from his grip, but you hear yourself say, “It’s me, Cole.” He jerks back, letting go of his own accord, putting distance between you. Now is your opportunity. You can go back to hiding, you can run, and this never happened.
But it has, and you can’t leave him alone here; he’s terrified, doubting his sanity, and you won’t do this to him.
“How?” he says, and then he scuffles against the floor of the forest, and you wish you could see him better, to know how he’s reacting to you. “No—” he says. “I don’t believe you.”
“That’s what you said the other night,” you murmur. “Not a lot’s changed.”
“You’re dead. Isaw you die.”
You can hear the terror in his voice, the disbelief mingled with hope, and there behind it all, the anger, and the outrage that you could be alive when he’s been devastated for so long.
“Cole, calm down,” you begin, putting your hands out toward him cautiously, even though you know it’s too dark for him to see the gesture. You’re shaking yourself, though, and you can’t imagine that your touch would be very calming.
“This can’t be happening,” Cole says, and the tone is familiar, panic-laced, and you remember the end: the pain, the all-encompassing physical pain, the devastation of seeing Cole hurting, the denial in Cole’s voice, the fear, and his terror that pierced you even as your body gave out under the stress of the injuries.
Death isn’t the land of rest as they claim. Not for you. No, death is sowrong: a fever-dream of collapsing atoms, and then an endless, restless knowledge that Cole needs you, that Cole is in pain, that he’s suffering, and a driving need to make that stop. There’s no peace in death. There’s only exhausting, grand yearning, and the never-ending pain of forced becoming.
