Chapter 92: Chapter 92

I sat there trying to grip my hand. Now that rigor has sat in, I can barely stand to touch it, but for some reason, I couldn’t let go.

Now the sun is coming up, I can hear the whoosh of the waves on the lake, the birds are chirping in this part of the forest and not one single person cares that I am gone, and I hate how badly that truth stings.

“Have you accepted it yet?” death loomed over my shoulder, but I couldn’t look at him. If I look, it just becomes more real.

“Go away.” I snarled.

“At some point, you will have to accept this. You will get hungry soon, and if that happens and you don’t feed, your soul will be lost. Do you understand?” I am being scolded by Death right now and, in most circumstances, I would have laughed my a*s off, but not right now.

“Just go, please.” I hadn’t realized I was crying until the tears fell to my knees.

How can they expect me to accept that I’m dead and have to go on some mystical f*****g journey to find love? That sounds like an underbudget movie plot with actors that no one has ever heard of. Nothing about that seems right. I have lost freedom, I have lost my life, my prom, my virginity, and out of all of that, the most bitter thing that keeps gnawing at me is that this is what Grant has made of my first taste of love. It is Bitter… it is bitter and rotten and wrong, and I can’t get it back. I can’t get any of it back.

That bitter feeling that started in my chest simmered until it covered every inch of me. I sat here all day and now, even as the sun is setting, I still haven’t been able to make peace with any of this. I buried my face in my knees as darkness fell over the forest. The crickets and fireflies woke up, the frogs joined in on the chorus of nightlife humming to life around me. Within that song that was being sung around me, murmuring erupted in the mix, making my head snap up to look around for the faint voices in the darkness surrounding me.

“Hello? Who’s there?” I cringed when you could hear fear clearly in my tone. If I weren’t already dead and it had been an axe murderer, I would’ve been screwed. But instead of the axe murder my mind had created, small lights of yellows and blues ignited in the trees.

“Are you sad?” one of the lights called out to me.

“Yes.” I called back, still thinking this was another vision created by the death of my neurons.

“Are you scared of the dark?” another one called out, flickering lightly in the dark sky.

“I am right now.” I hugged my legs closer, thinking that could somehow protect me.

The little lights grew by the hundreds until the forest was lit up with their little flames. I laughed as a tear rolled down my cheek. Whatever they are, they just planted a little seed of warmth in my frozen heart.

“There that’s better. We can stay with you tonight.” One called from up in the trees.

“Thank you.” I said around the quivering of my lips.

I laid back on the cold ground still gripping the stiff hand under the dirt. It’s funny. Somehow, I feel like I am holding the hand of a stranger now. I watched the lights dancing in the trees. Their little flames danced to the tune of the crickets chirping and as mesmerized as I was by their show, I sensed the presence of another.

“Ah, I see you have met the wisps.” Her sweet voice bounced around the forest, melting in with the tunes of the night.

I sat up looking into the moon’s eyes. Why has she come? I was just enjoying myself for the first time since this happened. I don’t want to talk about any more of this. I just want to watch the flames dance.

“The what?” I asked merely out of curiosity. I had wondered what the precious little flames were called.

She sat down next to me on the ground in her gown which looked entirely too expensive to touch the dirt.

“They are the will-o’-the-wisps. People say they are naughty little creatures that lure travelers into deep waters, but it isn’t true. They light the way for those that see them. Whatever their path, if their heart is pure, the wisps will come to guide you into the dark.” She had leaned back watching the wisps dance the same way I was. But now I could only look at her.

“I don’t want guidance. I can’t… I can’t leave. How am I supposed to move forward knowing that my body is right there? Just below the earth’s surface, I am folded up in a ball of black tulle and mistakes and not a single person is looking for me. I can’t leave her there. She deserves better… we both do.” I took one look at the hand that I had shoved through the freshly dug dirt. Then I focused back on the flames in the forest because touching the skin wrapped around my bones, and knowing that it is me is too painful… it hurts so f*****g bad knowing that I am the one in that hole.

“I am not asking you to leave my child. I am here to sit with you. Until you are ready to go to death, one of us will be with you, because you are right about one thing. No one deserves this.” From that point, we sat in silence watching the wisps light up the night until the blue kissed the sky, putting the flames, crickets, and hallucinations to sleep for now.

With the sunrise came the beachgoers. I could hear them all down there somewhere enjoying the water and basking in the sun that couldn’t reach through the trees that were surrounding me. Maybe I would get lucky, and some boy would be down there flirting with some girl, and… just maybe he would convince her to break away from the crowd to sneak away for hidden k****s and one of them would casually trip over the disheveled dirt covering me. Maybe today I will be found, even though no one is looking for me.

Despite how hard I held onto that hope, I sat here as Jane Doe holding the hand of Lennon Faith Montgomery, an eighteen-year-old girl who f****d up one time in her life and ended up buried under the dirt that those people were living their lives on. I watched them as the sun fell from the sky, and they all started packing up their bags and leaving, taking with them any hope that I had of my body being found today.

When the crickets and frogs returned to sing their song to the stars that were freckling the night sky, the hallucinations returned too. Only this time it was him and he was not nearly as kind as the moon.