Page 140 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
There are words on the tip of my tongue, and I almost say them for her. Before I can act on her impulse, she spins again, walking out of the room.
I watch her go, the door closing.
The residue of her sticks to my skin for several minutes. Then, I sink back into my body. My feeling.
And I can’t deny there’s something wrong.
Again and again, I reach for my heart, my torso. If I were less exhausted, I’d examine the feeling. But I’m not even sure it’s mine, and I can’t bother with other people at the moment.
Yet it feels so familiar.
Not familiar in the way that my heart and stomach hurt. Familiar in the way my legs once hurt.
I reach for them, surprised when my hand meets my knee cap. I expected it not to be there. For my legs to be gone… the same way I expect my stomach to be a gaping wound. I keep looking down, waiting.
But there’s nothing to wait for, not anymore. It’s already happened.
I sit up.
This is a metaphorical dismemberment, I realize. I understand exactly what’s happening.
The hollowing, the pain, the rot.
It’s something I hoped to never feel again, always knowing I’d never be so lucky.
My feet slam against the floor, and I rise, running out of the suite. I turn corner after corner of the academy halls. I don’t have enough hope to fight against the certainty that claws at my chest.
The halls are dark, darker so as I turn the last corner, not believing what my eyes are showing me.
It’s a dream—it’s the boy in my mind. I must have closed my eyes. It’s a figment of my imagination.
It’s sick.
But it’s not real.
But if it’s only in my mind, if it’s only the boy, why do I feel the impact of the marble floor when it meets my knees, reverberating through my bones like I’ve broken them?
Why do the sobs feel soreal, like a stone lodged in my chest, fighting its way out?
“Tell me this isn’t real,”I beg the boy.“Please tell me I’ve lost it. I’m sorry for what I said.”
“I cannot,”is his only answer.
In front of me is a bloody mess. A hole in his chest, my heart punched out.
There he is, the only boy I’ve ever loved. Azaire’s usually red cheeks, blanched. His usually smiling mouth, red.
“No,” I think I say out loud. I drag my body across the floor. “No, no, no.”
I pull Azaire’s body from Lucian’s lap and onto mine. I touch his snakes, trying to fill them with life. I caress his face, trying to fill him with color.
I try to suck the life from anything around me. I try to give it to him. If I can bring a figment of my imagination to life, can’t I save him?
I have to save him.
Nothing happens, and all I feel is death.
Azaire stills wears the rose amulet. Azaire wears the amulet on his chest and is dead despite it. My trembling hand hovers above the pendant, trying to touch it, but I cannot bring myself to.
