I believe that the world is crisscrossed all over with invisible threads. One of the strongest of these connects my heart to yours.

I believe that somewhere inside me is a space in the shape of you that has always been. You nestle in perfectly there, filling a part of me that's gone so long empty that it makes me weep to feel your presence. No one else can occupy your space.

I believe that if I smile for no reason, it must be because you're thinking of me, so I think of you often that I might bring you smiles you never expect.

I believe that when you're suffering, my sleeping mind is trying to take it from you, and that's why I get nightmares.

I believe that if I try with all my might, I can love you hard enough to erase the worst of the terrible things that have been done to you, those dark things that have clawed into your soul and refuse to let go.

I believe that we can save one another.

Just one step forward is all it will take.

He can do it. There’s no reason for him to hesitate (there never was). All he has to do is keep moving forward just a while longer.

But he has always been weak, and his knees tremble (but still don’t give in). Hours later, and he still breathes.

When a voice calls out to him, he freezes in fear (he lies again, he is so happy).

“Can you really do it?”

“Of course” (I can’t).

She looks down at his bag, filled with all sorts of unnecessary things a dead man has no need of. She then looks up into his eyes. (She looks right through them).

“It’s not over for you yet, you know.”

He hates her, a stranger who pretends to care about someone like him. Who pretends to know him. (He is so happy).

“I (don’t) want to die. Don’t try to stop me (please, stop me),” he finds himself saying.

“I won’t. You don’t have the guts to do it anyway.”

“What makes you say that?”

She stays silent.

He can’t jump.

Later that night he wonders why she was there too (he thinks he knows why).

.

The second time, she’s already there. He wonders if she always stands there at night. But she’s smiling, staring at the river below the bridge. He sees a tear, but when she turns to look back at him, he’s sure that he’s mistaken (he lies again).

“Back again?”

He isn’t sure why he’s there.

“When you’re ready to die, I’ll be there for you, if you like.”

“Why would I want you to be there?” (He does, he really does).

But she merely shrugs it off and smiles.

He’s not sure if he wants to die.

.

Somehow, they meet again and again, at that very same bridge. Somehow, he can no longer think of her as a stranger.

They don’t talk about much (they talk about anything and everything under the stars), but in these times spent together, he realizes that she’s so much like him (but she’s strong, so strong, unlike him). She doesn’t like to talk too much about her life, but he’s fine with that, as neither does he, and somehow they reach some sort of understanding through this.

Sometimes, she’s quieter. In such times, he can tell that she’d been crying, and he tries to make up for her silence (it is all he can do). At first, she merely nods and listens to what he has to say.

The first time he makes her laugh, he wants to keep living.

(He wants to keep living).

.

“Do you believe in an afterlife?”

She blinks up at him, and without hesitation, replies,

“I like to believe.”

“Why?”

For a while, she mulls it over. Then she looks up at the stars.

“I think that in the end, our souls will need somewhere to go. And… I’d like to be able to meet those I love once more.”

So she is like him. She too has lost all her loved ones. (But he still has one more person he dares to love).

“What do you think will happen before the end?” (He, too, is searching for the strength she has).

She smiles.

“I wonder… perhaps we’ll be granted other chances? New lives, where those who suffered before can finally be happy. Where their souls can find a semblance of hope, so they can rest peacefully till the end.”

“Do you… do you believe in God?”

“Do you?”

“I… I don’t know. I like to believe,” (that someone is there for us, that there is more to it than just despair, that there is a reason for all this).

“Me too.”

She sees right through him.

(She always does).

.

“There’s a beautiful flower field close to the city. I’d love to show it to you sometime, if you want.”

“Of course.”

.

He names all the flowers for her. She laughs like an excited child, picking and smelling the different flowers. She dances amongst the flowers, saying that they’re so beautiful. He agrees.

(In his eyes, she’s the only flower worth praising).

She goes out to the middle of the field, where she stops. She stays still for a long while, and this worries him. He goes out to check up on her, and places a hand on her arm.

“What’s wrong? Is everything alri-”

In an instant, he’s rolling on the ground, amongst all the flowers, and so many flowers are rubbing against his face, and all he can smell is the strong aroma of these flowers, but the only thing he can focus on is the clear laughter beside him, and the girl who pulled him down.

Her smile is real.

As they stop rolling, his heart stops too.

Wordlessly, he puts a flower in her hair.

“What’s that for?”

“Nothing. I just thought it’d suit you.”

“Why? What’s it mean?”

He smiles, but stays silent.

It’s a forget-me-not.

.

Somehow, slowly, their lives have become intertwined, he doesn’t know why (he does), but it makes him so goddamn happy. He looks forward to waking each morning, if only to see her face again. His gaze no longer lingers on the busy streets, nor on the rivers flowing past, and he no longer wonders how dying would feel. He no longer fears the sensation of death, because he’s alive now, and he wants to live. And when she smiles at him, he wonders just why he had once wanted to die (but if he hadn’t tried to die, would he have even met her? He’s not sure if he can believe in fate).

They’ve become closer to one another than to anyone else (he has, he hopes it’s the same for her) and he even begins wondering what the future will be like. He becomes used to waking up every morning to her smiling face (she is like the sun, even smiling in the early hours of the morning). That she would be with someone like him makes him love himself just a bit more (although someone like her doesn’t deserve to be with someone as foul as he is). But she stays with him, and he loves her for it.

(He loves her).

He loves her.

.

Spring has arrived. It’s been more than a year since he first met her on the bridge.

It was raining.

She had always loved the rain. Whenever it would rain she’d pull him out to get soaked, and dance in circles around him while he sulked (he would never sulk, he’d be staring at her smiling face and graceless movements that, to him, were beautiful).

It had been raining when they had had their first fight. It was nothing huge, just a small scuffle over who’d hold the umbrella, he had said that obviously it should be him, he was the taller one. She had said that she liked twirling the umbrella like in the movies, so therefore it should definitely be her. It’d been a petty fight, and they’d burst out laughing because really, who would fight over an umbrella?

He had never loved the rain. It always reminded him of all he had lost, for the world seemed to be devoid of colour just like it was back then.

But she had made him see that the remaining colours stood out much brighter when it rained, and she was the brightest colour of them all.

(He had never hated the rain either).

.

He wants to be with her. He wants a future with her in it.He wants to grow old with her. So he tells her.

It’s raining, and she’s next to him under their umbrella (which she is holding), and her arm shakes, and he thinks she’s going to drop the umbrella, and he can’t read her expression, (and he’s so, so scared).

She smiles again, and his world stops spinning, and suddenly it’s the two of them all alone on the bridge again.

“Didn’t I promise you that I’d be there for you when you die?”

And his world starts spinning again, so fast that he’s not sure if he can keep up with it. The colours of the dreary world around him seem even brighter, and he wants to live, he feels like he’s alive.

The sky clears.

And she’s so happy, and she shoves the umbrella into his hand and runs out on the street, beckoning him to follow her.

And he’s laughing too (he can’t remember the last time he laughed like this).

He almost doesn’t see what happens next.

(He wishes he didn’t).

His world stops spinning once more.

Just one step forward is all it took.

He’s crying, the ghost of a smile still on his lips, and he hears a scream above the honking of cars and shouts of people. He realizes it’s his voice.

The sky was blue.

(He sees grey).

.

There’s a splash of water in the dead of night.

.

There’s a bridge on the way to his school that he always stops by at. He doesn’t know why he’s so drawn to it, but he always feels as if he’s looking for someone he has never met.

Once, there’s a girl sitting there, a girl who is oddly familiar. But he is already late and has no choice but to keep moving forward.

He sees her again, and again, but somehow he is never able to approach her (he lies still, he is scared, he has never tried to approach her, and has never even dared to look at her face).

.

She stops coming one day. It doesn’t bother him (it does). She is a stranger (he finds it harder to convince himself) and she has no reason to come here, nor he to worry about her (not true).

.

It is night, and he cannot sleep, so he decides to get some fresh air. Somehow, he ends up at the bridge again.

She is there.

And this time she turns to look at him, and he can finally see her face.

She smiles, and his world starts spinning again (when did it stop? He can’t remember if it ever spun).

“Why are you crying?”

.

Just one step forward was all it took.

And so their story began anew.