Perception Magazine Spring 2020

Ashes Rebecca Lloyd

There’s no moon tonight, just the bonfire. But the flames’ reflection dances on the churning water. The crash of waves mixes with the crackling sparks and I shriek as the boy scoops me up from behind. He holds me tight and runs straight for the water. I take a deep breath just before he drops me.

It’s only a few feet deep, but I let myself submerge and wrap around his legs.

He stumbles and comes under with me. I kiss him desperately, clinging to every second until we both surface, gasping for air.

The precious first breath after being underwater for so long, that’s living.

He kisses me again and I wrap myself around him. I reach for his arm and he throws me back into the water. Laughter escapes my lips as bubbles floating to the surface. I whip my hair up and it splashes him, hitting my back with a clap. He reaches for my hand and pulls me up. We wade back to the fire hand in hand, to where his friends are waiting.

The boy in the white shorts hands us both a drink and the girl hanging off his arm bites her lip and kisses his shoulder. I take a deep breath, letting the smoke mix with the salty air and fill my lungs, then let go of his warm hand to grip the bottle and twist it open.

Damn it.

The seashore fades and I drop the bottle to reach for his hand, hating the fact that the hand I actually grab won’t be his. I squint as the dancing firelight is exchanged for fluorescents that flood the hospital room. It’s always a hospital.

I’ve lost my favorite brown bikini and am now wearing a shapeless light blue sundress. There’s no cleavage and barely even a waist. I’m holding a teenage girl’s right hand; Death is holding her left; neither of us is letting go. I roll my eyes at him and he shrugs. “I thought she was mine.”

Alice lays still, shallow breaths raising the carefully knit pink blanket that covers her chest. Her left wrist is bandaged tightly, but blood is seeping through. An IV is attached to her right wrist, pumping who knows what into her veins. Her short blond eyelashes rest gently on her pale face. I can’t tell if her face is colorless because of her condition or because her sister had wiped her vibrant mask of makeup off just hours earlier while the doctor had been talking to their parents. That was before we arrived.

Her parents sit in two plastic chairs, the type with those marbleized blue patterned fabric cushions, the type no human thinks is comfortable, yet Spring 2020 | 89