At first I didn't understand why Jason would be calling me at the early three in the morning, the day after my transplant was the last time I saw him. Three weeks ago.
Everything was silent for a few seconds: the raw glow of the mobile screen, the drip of the bathroom faucet, the ticking of a clock.
And everything was summed up by the cliffhanger of silence on the other side of the line. The visceral silence prior to the orchestra.
«Will is dead.»
Finally, my orchestra.
It was like watching a tragic scene of bloodthirsty and passionate film.
I screamed. I cried desperately. I cried until I felt the darkness choking me; its thumbs pressed against my throat, cutting off my breath.
I dropped my phone as I stumbled up into the living room, feeling gravity bend my legs to the floor.
It couldn't be true. It couldn't be true. Not Will.
My parents were around me before I even had the chance to explain myself.
They knew it was about Will ,about his death. And his words echoed in my head like a painful torture: "It's just life, it'll be over before you know it."
One of the disadvantages of living under absolute and total vigilance is that they deprive you of the human right of letting you break into a thousand pieces.
I didn't want kind words, I didn't want consolation, I didn't want plasters.
I wanted to feel pain, the most intrinsic and overwhelming pain.
I wanted to hate Will Newman. And, beyond that, I wanted to hear him tell me he was sorry, I wanted to see the shame in his eyes for breaking his promise: "I'll be fine."
Another flash: Will in front of my window, his half-sided smile that so maddened me–which I so much wanted to slap, a whisper, a breath:
«I love you.»
A third voice appeared in the frenzy of caresses and silent explosions speaking clearly in the fog.
Echo, in love with Narciso, saw her true love die slowly and humanly, sheltered in the soft embrace of a tree, deciding to whisper her lover's last words until death took her with him. The myth says that the echo that gives us back the solitude of silence, are the sobbed whispers of the shattered nymph.
And selfishly I wondered if Will whispered my name as a tribute to our love with numbered days. I wondered if he gave me his last breath with a sarcastic and smug smile that highlighted the blue of the oceans imprisoned in his irises as life slipped through his fingers, without enough force to try to stop him; The paradox of life is that life itself kills you.
I remember hearing my parents' broken cry while they told me again and again that they were sorry and covered my skin with caresses that spoke: «I love you», «I'm here», «I'm sorry», «its not fair», «I'd like to take away the pain, absorb it ».
I only knew that I was crying when the burn of the tears moistened my cheeks like a poisonous kiss, the memories sprang up, running down my face to fall to the cold uncomfortable marble slab of the floor that cradled me.
«Reborn,» I thought «reborn, come back to me.» And it sounded like a desperate prayer.
I thought about the Christmas lights.
The video calls.
The roof.
The drawings.
I thought about the first date.
And I found the funny irony of death: the happiest moments now tore apart, shattered, sank.
"Close your eyes, Stella, I don't think I'll be able to leave if you're looking at me. Let me go, Stella."
His voice resounded in my ears like the comfort of a lullaby.
"I'll be fine."
His soft voice, his luminous eyes, his honest smile.
And if his smile was honest, his soul would be honest too. His promise would be honest.
«He'll come back tomorrow. Will is fine, he promised.»
And, somewhere lost between tears and memory, trapped in the loop of despair, silence returned. I fell asleep.
When You Kiss Me Heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see La Vie En Rose.
The soft verses woke me up, accompanied by the purring of a guitar.
Slowly I was waking up. An uncontrolled smile rising on my lips, hypnotized.
With a delicate and drowsy heartbeat, I reached for my phone to text Will, my own chest hammering with hunger and urgency.
They were playing our song.
And he laughed sincerely, five feet, not one more.
It would be some hour lost in the lonely poetry of the dawn when the insomnia threw them into each other's arms–metaphorically.
The hospital was submerged in a placid silence that highlighted his laughter, having an effect on Stella.
They walked to the cafeteria when, in front of the reception, they heard a sweet voice tell a promise.
Stella stopped short, dazzled by the love in every word.
Will smiled at her, intoxicated by the innocence of the girl's bright, passionate eyes.
She turned to look at him, with a smile that went to both cheeks bathed in blush . She was beautiful.
Will arched an eyebrow, inviting her to share any thoughts that were haunting her at that moment. Stella's smile seemed to grow.
"We're not going to dance, Stella," Will said, frowning at such lack of prudence on Stella's part. "Five feet, remember?"
My fingers froze, still.
Will.
Will.
Like an iron slab on my stomach, I fell into the bleak darkness last night when Jason uttered those choking words:
"Will is dead."
And next to that, my little conversation with Will that wasn't Will anymore (Or would he always be?)
«Let me go, Stella. »
I cried silently against the pillow, except that this time the dream didn't come to save me, but left me to drown in the sudden emptiness of my heart while whispering broken
"Will, I love you Will Newman"
"Come back, Will"
"Don't ask me to close my eyes."
They both rocked with the purring of the guitar, feeling forgetful of insomnia when feeling out of all measure of time.
And they danced without touching.
Smiling with the stares, kissing with the smile and dancing with their hearts while they rocked with small swings to the passage of the moon's sweet song.
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