Chapter Text
This story starts as it will end, on a dark starry night.
Red and blue filled the surrounding nature, highlighting the dark, towering pines and the cracked, defeated natural debris, emitting from a nearby cop car.
Lewis Walker is dead. They found him lying in the woods, cradled by a fallen pine tree. They won't tell me anything else. They won't tell me how he died, if foul play was involved, or even let me see the body. Not that I would want to anyways, I'd probably faint. The police officers are talking, but I can't hear them. I can't hear anything.
My name is Fern Montalvo, although right now that name isn't important to me. Lewis Walker is. Lewis Walker, for the last 3 months of his life, has been my boyfriend, my light in the dark, my second half, and my true love. He was the sun, the center of my world, and I was a mere planet circling around him, blessed to be in his presence. Now, my sun is dead, and only I remain, floating off into space with no gravitational pull to keep me in orbit. He was my pull.
I can't hear the paramedics yell as they wheel away Lewis' dead body, shielded from my gaze by a white blanket. When I would take his hand and imagine him wearing white, I didn't mean it like this. I thought it would be filled with church bells and honest vows, not death and tears. I stare as they load him into the ambulance. I can't hear the door slam and the vehicle pull away. Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to listen. I am deaf, you see. I have been since birth. Yet, I was filled with music. The sweet melody of Lewis' smile plucked at the strings of my heart. He would come to all my ballet shows, giving me a standing ovation each time. The spotlight was bright, and sometimes burned my eyes, but dim compared to his glowing face.
Now, my life has no light.
I'd say the silence of my room is deafening, but when has it never been silent. No... it's not silent. It's empty. Once, it was full of him. Him and all his rays of happiness that consumed every corner of my being. Him and his tender kisses, like butterflies to the soul. I am not a man of many words, but I'd fill a library up with books that sing his praises.
And now, he's gone. He's gone. And only I remain. Only I remain in my cold, dead room, hugged by the cruel night. I cry. I scream, but I can't hear it. I don't know how loud I was or if I woke up my sleeping family. As a matter of fact, I couldn't give less of a shit. I lay on my bed, wailing as if it would call his soul back to me. As if the lights of heaven would stream into my room, forming an apparition of my love, who would lay beside me and hold my face with his gentle hands.
I'm wearing his hoodie. His soft, blood-red hoodie that he left behind the last time he came over. I grip onto the sleeves as I breathe in the remaining smell of his cologne, holding on to the last bit of him. It felt like a warm hug, but it didn't bring any form of comfort to my soul. At least, not to the level the real, living, breathing Lewis Walker would give me. I felt dead. I felt just as dead as Lewis Walker. I felt so dead you could bury me next to Lewis Walker, and I'd rot beside him.
In a way, I wanted that.
I sit up slowly, some divine force pulling up my limp body. The room is so dark and empty. If I was any less awake, I'd think a black hole had consumed me, entrapping me in its strong jaws.
I stand up. My legs are jelly. They tremble as I walk the rest of my stiff body to my desk, almost tripping over my tap shoes in the process. Curse them. Curse those damn shoes. I sit by my desk, littered with unfinished homework and damp tissues. I push it all off, watching it hit the ground before slamming my head against the hard wood and letting out a broken shriek. If I could hear, I imagine it would sound like playing a violin with untuned strings and a broken bow. A sad shriek that silences the most melodious of songs.
I lift my head up slowly. I stare at a picture on my desk, it stares back. It's a photo of me and Lewis on our first date.
The ice rink. It was possibly the happiest day of my life. I can still feel the touch of his hands as we glide around the rink, the cold biting at our noses and cheeks. I can still see the sparkle in his eyes as he laughs at my unsteady stance on the slippery ice. His lips on my cheek filled me with bliss. I would kiss him back. Lewis Walker had this effect where if you looked into his eyes long enough, you'd start to melt. If it wasn't for the December chill, I would have been nothing but a puddle at that moment. He twirled me around the ice, but my dizziness did not stop him from looking like an angel on Earth. An angel that has now returned to its home in heaven. Was I not home enough? Was this world too cruel that you had to leave it? And why hadn't you taken me with you?No. No you don't, Fern Montalvo. Don't you dare think about those things. Those wretched things. Lewis Walker may be gone, but he would want you to live. He would want you to move on.
But, I can't move. I can't do anything. I'm as dead as Lewis Walker, except only one of our bodies was found in the forest tonight, only one of our bodies is held up in a morgue, and only one of our bodies is decaying with every waking second.
And by fuck, it isn't mine.
I stay awake for a few more hours, crying my soul out until my body has released every drop of water onto my bedroom floor. Eventually, my eyes betrayed me and closed, allowing sleep to take over my body.
[END OF CHAPTER ONE]