Breathe for love tomorrow, ‘cause maybe there’s another way.
Breathe (Until Tomorrow) - Paramore
The sun painted Leah’s eyelids pink as she lay on the cool grass. She watched as the pink grew darker when a cloud passed in front of it, blocking its rays, and grew light again when the cloud passed. A gentle breeze played with the leaves, scraping them together softly.
Nothing was exchanged between her and Oliver. No nods, embraces, looks of understanding. She liked to think he knew what was going on, but was waiting for her to say it aloud. Oliver used to say that if you weren’t strong enough to speak your thoughts, you weren’t strong enough to face them. Even though the silence was all that filled the air, she felt the security of Oliver lying near to her.
Leah opened her eyes and faced the sky. Clouds drifted by aimlessly, lazily, like sighs of the angels. The wind teased her chocolate brown hair into her face, tickling her nose, but she ignored it.
In Leah’s mind, she was screaming. Her thoughts were clawing at her like a locked up pet, but she couldn’t bring herself to face them. She couldn’t open the door and watch them bolt, words rushing from her mouth like a landslide. It was all too fresh, too tender, too raw.
Leah finally brought herself to break the silence. “Oliver, there’s something I need to tell you.”
After the words came out, she closed her eyes and bit her lip. Like a soldier ready for battle, Oliver waited for her to continue.
“I met someone else,” she began slowly, sitting up and looking at the ground. She began plucking the grass out one by one. “Another guy.”
In her mind, she could picture Oliver clearly. He would nod like he understood that much, but his eyes would give away his confusion. He was always curious, always asking why. For the eight years she knew him, he hadn’t changed very much.
“His name is Blake.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling him this, but she felt like it needed to be done. “Blake Stammler.”
The quiet pressed on. Leah always hated silence; she always felt the need to fill it, and while doing that she had a habit of nervously rambling about something completely useless.
“Everyone says we’re cute together. I like to make fun of him because his initials are BS,” she chuckled.
Oliver didn’t laugh.
She sighed and knitted her fingers together, staring at her palms. There was a heart that Blake had drawn in English earlier that day. B.S+L.P was written in the middle. This isn’t the appropriate time to make jokes, she scolded herself.
“The reason I’m telling you this is because…well, quite frankly, I’m terrified.” Leah laughed humorlessly and looked back up at the sky. “Want to know why?”
She felt stupid after asking the question, so she answered it herself. “I’m scared because I think I’m in love with him.”
Leah expected the silence that followed her confession, but it still scared her. She looked back down at the ground and began yanking the grass out harder and in bigger chunks, until she was grabbing fistfuls and pulling out soil.
Suddenly words started tumbling out of her mouth faster than she could stop them. “I’m scared because I haven’t known him too long and it doesn’t feel that way. I feel like I can open up without having to be scared of how he’ll judge me. Nothing about him feels surreal. Actually, when I think about it, he feels factual to me. He’s the leveled dose of reality to keep my head out of the clouds. And it’s all so meticulous and… and so perfect that sometimes I get apprehensive. I guess the real thing I’m afraid of is figuring out it’s all a lie. Like one morning I’ll just wake up from it all, and everything I have worked so hard on to build back up will just be taken from me.”
Like how you were taken from me.
Leah tried to stop the tears that were forming in her eyes, but they spilled over and splashed onto the patch of grass between her crossed legs. She couldn’t take it any longer. She had to face him. She had to be strong. She was strong enough to share her thoughts, now it was time to face them.
She looked up at the gray slab of marble that marked Oliver’s grave. Her eyes retraced the letters of his name, even though she had them memorized. OLIVER JAMES DAVIS. That name, the name she wrote out on her diary as her future surname, was like a giant splinter being wedged into her heart.
She reached out to touch it, but stopped midway. It felt like there was a cord connected to her arm, and if she went any further it would unplug the cork holding back the little bit of hope that has kept her alive the last seven months.
A sob escaped from her lips, and just like that her walls came crashing down. “I can’t do it, Oliver. I just can’t. I don’t know anything without you. I feel like I’ve been put into a new life to start over. I don’t know how to live, how to function, how to feel. With you, everything came naturally. I didn’t have to stop and think. And now that’s all changed.”
She lied on her side, curling her knees into her chest. She didn’t want to stop the tears. She was tired of forcing herself to be happy even when she wasn’t. She let them stream freely, falling onto the ground and soaking into the soil. Somewhere deep inside of her thought that maybe, just maybe, the tears could reach him. Like a message, a sign of some sort, to let him know that she needed him more than he imagined.
“I’m scared, Ollie,” she whispered.
Suddenly Leah was reminded of one summer night they spent staring at the stars. Oliver had his one arm around her shoulders as she curled up next to him, her head and hand on his chest. When she closed her eyes that night, she could hear the echoing of his heart, the steady pound of a drum that Oliver said God had put in his chest to beat for her and only her.
Leah closed her eyes, trying to get lost in the memories and let them take her back to that night. But as she lied alone with her head on the ground and her hand on what she thought was Oliver’s heart, she only heard the silence that she knew would forever haunt her.
End.
