© Copyright 2011
All work is property of Leah Crichton, any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal.

Affliction: (uh-flik-shun)

a state of pain or distress

cause of mental or bodily pain

He walked in the direction of the ditched car, but his body wasn’t as solid as it usually was. It didn’t feel right. “Put me down,” I told him, “I can walk.” He didn’t argue. He didn’t say anything at all as he set me on my feet. He grabbed his shoulder and winced. I watched as his olive skin began to pale. His eyebrows furrowed, and he clenched his teeth.

“Orion?” Rather than respond to me, he continued to walk. “Orion?” Nothing. I scurried ahead and stood in front of him, blocking his path.

It was the first good look I got at the damage Damien had inflicted. His right eye was black and had a gash that extended out to his temple. I guessed this was from the kick to the head Damien had landed before Orion threw him. His top lip was swollen, with a similar slice running across it. His cheekbone was sunken where Damien’s foot had pummeled him.

Frantic, I pulled him down so he was sitting on the ground. I yanked his t-shirt over his head abruptly, which made him cringe again. “Sorry,” I mumbled. Orion’s chest, stomach and arm revealed the true brutality of Damien’s onslaught. I gasped. His abdomen and chest were unrecognizable, a mass of dark bruises. It was hard to distinguish contusions from the soot that covered his skin. The filthy carbon was a result of rushing into an inferno to save me. There was a massive hole in his arm where Damien’s fiery spear had penetrated it. It was blistered.

He managed to shuffle so his back rested on a tree nearby, but then he slumped, defeated. I fought back the tears and reminded myself that at this point, I was the stronger one. I brought my hand to my mouth to cover it, to hide my trembling lower lip.

“Orion?” I repeated his name but it was like my pleas were falling on deaf ears. He closed his eyes. “Orion?” My voice was manic. I wanted to shake him, but I worried that may hurt him even more. He still wouldn’t respond. I placed my hand on his chest and could feel the faint beat of his heart. “Orion?” He didn’t even acknowledge me.

I curled on the ground next to him and lay my head on his chest, sobbing loudly. It didn’t matter because he couldn’t hear me. “I love you. I love you,” I kept repeating myself, hoping it would bring him back. “Please don’t leave me.” I lay there bawling. All of this was because of me. He was slipping away because of me. The tears fell relentlessly from my face. They burned my eyes before falling onto Orion’s bare skin. I thought they might never end.

It felt like I had been sobbing forever when, suddenly, I felt his hand on  the back of my head, running through my hair. His voice was faint, so much quieter than I was used to. “Don’t cry, Tiger,” he whispered. “It kills me when you cry.”

I sniffled, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt. “Orion! I was so sure, I thought...” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it.

“Shhh,” he said weakly, putting his finger across my lips. “I’ll be okay.”

I ran my fingers through his hair and looked at him. His eyes were dimmer now, but still unnaturally blue. “I love you,” I told him.

“I know.” He moved me gently off of his chest as he sat up slightly, but he still needed to rest his body against the tree.

“Can you, you know, fix yourself like you can fix me?” My eyes scanned his damaged body, praying his magic was not reserved for other people—that he could do it to himself too.

“Yeah,” he replied. “It just takes a bit longer.” He nodded toward his stomach and chest, which were changing color from the grotesque blue back to the gorgeous olive tone I loved so much. It was a painstakingly slow process. His skin was blotchy. He stood slowly, carefully, and held out his hand for me.

I took it and hoisted myself off of the ground. “What about the rest of them?” I asked. He looked at me and put his hand over his eye; when he removed it to cover his lip, his eye was healed. He fixed his lip and moved to his arm. He barely touched it. When he moved it this time, the wound was closed and the skin was un-blistered, but a puffy scar remained. 

“You didn’t get it all,” I pointed out.

“I know,” he said. “Can I have my tee shirt?”

I held his shirt behind my back. “Why didn’t you get it all?”

“Because,” he said, looking at me, “When I look at it, I’ll remember what I fought for. Tee shirt, please.” His large hand stretched in front of him. I tossed it at him and he slipped it over his head.  He looked at me and smiled. “C’mon, Tiger. We should go say our goodbyes.”

“Goodbyes?”

“Um, yeah, goodbyes. There’s nothing stopping us now.” He gestured to the field where Damien’s body lay limp and lifeless. “Why postpone the inevitable any longer? You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

“No, I haven’t changed my mind.”

He raised his eyebrow, which had no sign of the huge gash that had just been there. “Good. We still need to go to the car.”

Safe in the car, the reality of what I’d just seen hit me. How terrifying it had been to watch, how I almost lost Orion for good. I sat in silence, afraid to say anything at all and trying to control the panic. Orion was in tune with my feelings. “Hey,” he said. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.” He put his hand on top of mine.

“You just killed your brother,” I said. “How is that okay?”

“Damien was dead the minute he decided to get involved with you.”

“I was scared. I thought I might lose you.”

He squeezed my hand. “But you didn’t. I’m here. We’re both okay. I told you I wouldn’t let him get you if it was the last thing I did. Just keeping my promise.”

I looked out the window. This would be the last time I would see the beauty of the world around me: the green of the trees, the blue of the sky. I sighed. “Orion, what is Heaven like?”

“Just like here, but better. There is no one like Damien, there is no fighting, just peace. Everything is just as beautiful, even more so. I can’t describe it to you. You’ll just have to wait and see. It’s not a place in the sky where you float from cloud to cloud with angel wings, you know; it is simply a new and different life you are starting.”

“With you,” I finished for him.

“Exactly. You and me together.” He smiled.

I felt a little better as we pulled into the twins’ driveway. They were in the yard, the group of them. Mona stood hand in hand with Kyle. Alicia was setting a tray with lemonade on a table and Alex sat cross-legged on the grass. Orion got out of the car and came around to open my door. Alicia moved first, running to him. She threw her arms around him and he lifted her up into a big bear hug. “Ry,” she said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He buried his face in her hair. “Alicia. I’m sorry for how I treated you. It was terrible.”

“Don’t you dare apologize. I know it was hard for you. Friends forever, right?”

He kissed the top of her head and put her down. “Forever,” he told her. He moved toward Alex and held out his hand. Alex took it and a friendly handshake was exchanged. I looked over at Mona, who had tears in her eyes. Kyle was trying to comfort her, but it was useless; as Orion walked over to her Kyle moved out of the way. Mona didn’t say anything. She just put her arms around his waist and buried her head in his chest. Orion wrapped his arms tightly around her. The bond she shared with him was clearly stronger than the rest of his friends. It was awkward to witness. I felt horrible for her. He pulled back and put his hands on her face, forcing her to look at him as he had done with me so many times before. “Don’t cry for me. Please, you can’t do that. You know I’ll see you later, right?”

“Yeah,” she sniffled. “I know. Doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye.”

“It’s not goodbye. I’ll see you later, you know that.”

Mona rested her head on his chest again. “I love you, Orion. You’re like the brother I never had.”

He kissed her forehead. “Don’t cry. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” His voice was soothing. His feet started rocking back and forth. I knew this was his way of trying to offer comfort to his best friend.  He nodded his head in my direction. “No more tears, ‘kay?” He wiped the moisture from her eyes.

“I just can’t imagine not having you here.”

“I’ll be around. Besides, you’ve got this guy now; you'll be around before you know it.”

As they embraced, Alicia approached me. “Bye, Ireland. You made the right choice. Orion is definitely someone to spend forever with.”

“Thank you for everything. You were such a good friend to me.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said. She wiped a tear from her eye, and I did the same. “Look at us.” She fanned her face with her hand, like she was trying to stop her makeup from running. “This is silly! We will see each other again, maybe sooner than you think.”

Alex turned to face me. “You deserve to be happy, Ireland. So does he.” He nodded to Orion.

“Thanks, Alex,” I told him. Alex and I were never close by anyone’s standards, but he was Orion’s friend and Alicia’s twin. “That means a lot.”

“C'mon, Tiger, I wanna go, before anything else can possibly go wrong.” After saying goodbye one more time, we got back in the car.

“Mona took that pretty hard,” I said to Orion as we drove back to my house.

“Yeah. Mona and I are-” he stopped short. Describing the complexity of their relationship was difficult for them. He tried again. “We’re, I, I’ve always been there for her, she’s always been there for me. She was the one who was there when my life turned this way. I hope she knows how much she means to me.”

“She knows, Orion. I know she knows. She loves you,” I said assuredly. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he said.

“What is with Kyle? Does he know about her?” Did Kyle realize he was falling in love with death?  I hadn’t thought of this before, but now I wanted to know.

“Kyle will know about Mona soon enough. She is the one who makes him happier than he’s ever been, like I do for you, like Helena does for Luke.”

There was one thing I had left to do. “Hey, Orion?”

“Yeah?”

“Could we make one more stop before we go?”

“Sure. Where is it you’d like to go?”

“I need to say goodbye to my Dad.”

“Yes,” Orion muttered. “Yes, I suppose you do.”