Oh, god.

The damp earth stung my nostrils, thick air filling my lungs and weighing me down. Rain plastered my hair to my head, blurring my vision as it ran rivers past my eyelids and mingled with the tears there. My soaked clothes hung from my body like a second skin, offering no protection from the late autumn chill.

The downpour pounded against the fallen leaves that littered the ground, deafening me—and yet I could still hear the telltale shift of him trailing behind me.

Not footsteps this time, but a slither. A slimy, unspeakable sound. Something inhuman.

Because we weren't human anymore. Neither of us.

Oh, god. Oh god oh god oh—

What have I done?

I tightened my grip on his ankles and bowed my head against the storm, fighting both a wave of nausea and my own heart back down my throat. Dread iced my veins—a sort of doom that told me to turn back, but the kind that would never disappear no matter which direction I ran.

And then, through the driving rain, I finally saw it: The intersection of picket fence that marked the farthest corner of the garden, so pristine and suburban and perfect, guarding an barren square of land where nothing had ever grown.

With a gasp, I fell to my knees. A dull, sick thump reverberated as my grasp on him disappeared, and his limp feet hit the ground like a ragdoll's.

Wheezing, I clawed at the earth. Softened by the rain, it gave way, oozing between my fingers and embedding itself under my nails. I threw it to the side by the fistful, forming a haphazard pile off to the right.

He laid beside me, as patient and persistently present as ever. Unmoving, his presence still loomed over me like a menacing watchtower. If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear his voice. Soft, lilting, but wild in a way that he couldn't control so that sometimes it rose into a sharp laugh.

Sometimes it just got too loud.

As if to compensate, the rain drove down harder. I redoubled my efforts, digging and sifting and throwing. Arms smeared with mud all the way to my elbows, I lowered myself into the hole I'd formed and scraped away at its edges until it was just like him—too broad, too tall, too deep to be real—and then I stood in its center with my chest heaving as the water started to pool around my feet.

Breathe. For a moment, I closed my eyes and let everything disappear except what lay ahead. This was the end. Finally, freedom danced within reach.

But when I opened my eyes again, the soles of his shoes stared back at me from eye level, still propped at odd angles in the dirt above. My chest tight again, I heaved myself out the hole and stared down at him, the darkness slimming his face into something haunt and mysterious.

Crouching beside him, I took his face in both of my hands, ignoring the cold, clammy union of our skin. It's just the fault of the rain, I told myself. He was real, he was warm, he was alive. Just sleeping peacefully, deeply, carefree like I always wished I could make him.

I leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead, tasting nothing but the metallic tang of dirt and rainwater. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry, but I loved you. And I can't love you and live at the same time."

I choked on a sob, wishing I'd had the courage to say it to his face. He deserved to understand it all, even the parts that words could never express. How I wanted to take his hand, or to kiss his lips, or just sit beside him in the silence with our shoulders bumping together and let that be enough for him to feel everything that I felt—the everything that I felt, because he made me feel it all.

I just wanted him to know his own magnitude. The everything that he had become to me.

The reason I got up in the morning. The reason I smiled even though I wanted to cry. The reason I joked and laughed and pushed myself past my own limits.

The reason I broke. The reason I cried at night. The reason I hid myself away so that no one would see as the cracks spread and became canyons and etched themselves into my soul.

Canyons named for him.

"It was you or me." I smoothed a hand through his wet, tangled hair and hated how perfectly I could imagine the blue of his eyes, even though they were shut tight. "One of us had to die, and I—"

I hiccuped, my throat spasming around itself.

"—I'm not that brave."

I waited one more second, a moment of vain hope that maybe he'd spring back to life and take me in his arms and say that he knew, he understood, because death held the knowledge of the universe.

Nothing moved.

I let my hands fall away and slipped them under his shoulders, cradling him like that for a moment before I dragged him to the edge of the hole and gently lowered him inside. I tried to shut my ears to the wet slap of his limbs as they fell into place, unsupported by muscle. An undignified end to such a regal, refined existence.

A fleeting idea, of sitting down beside him and letting the rain fall around us and fill our grave until it was well over my head, flitted through my imagination. I could drown with him, drown in him, watch him ripple in the murky water as we both floated toward an unknown so concrete that nothing ever returned.

But then his death would mean nothing. His life would mean nothing.

I stood, clambered back to the surface, and cupped both of my hands around a clump of dirt. I held it in front of me, right above his chest, and took one last deep breath before I let it fall.

It scattered, right over his heart, and I sighed.

"I guess this is goodbye."

____________________

Faster. My lungs screamed as the humid air threatened to clog my throat. My calves ached, hamstrings protesting their overuse as I forced myself still faster.

The sun burned itself into my neck from behind. Sweat stung my eyes as it snuck in at the corners, no matter how many times I tried to wipe it away. Rocks slipped under my feet, dragging at me as I tried to fight forward.

I laughed.

Months had passed since that night in the darkest, most distant part of the garden. The months had grown longer, the skies bluer, the clouds puffier and whiter. I hadn't returned.

This was freedom—running toward something now, instead of away. Getting better. Getting stronger. Becoming something that I would have been proud to show him.

Something he never would have let me become.

Me.

The steady rhythm of my footsteps carried my mind away, letting my legs wander aimlessly down the garden paths. Before I knew it, I'd reached the edge of the picket fence that surrounded the garden, and I skidded to a stop.

That night flashed through my memory—fallen leaves, lashing rain, barren earth. For some reason, every time I imagined it, it hadn't changed. Like if I somehow chanced upon this hidden corner again, it would be immune to time and seasons. Forever autumn, forever cold and dying, forever empty save for the bones of a love long gone.

What lay before me stole my breath. The ground, though still scarred and slightly mounded where I had tried to pack it back down, sprouted the most vibrant colors—violets and daisies and roses and tulips fit for a rainbow. They reached for the sky, straining toward the sun—toward life—not one shade of black or gray or brown marring their bed.

They were beautiful, more so than he and I had ever been.

A tiny rustle, almost like a slight breeze blowing through a stand of tall grass, broke the silence behind me. But the air clung to my skin like a blanket: Still, unmoving.

There was no breeze.

I only managed to turn my head an inch before the hairs on the back of my neck rose, prickling my skin. Goosebumps raced down my arms as I stiffened, becoming aware of a presence.

I shivered despite the heat and humidity. It was the inexplicable, almost supernatural way in which I'd always become aware of him. I'd never needed to hear him, or even see him. I just knew.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged myself. It's not him, I repeated over and over in my head. He's gone. You're safe now. It's not him.

When my breaths were even again, I turned around.

Eyes the color of the sky stared back at me.

It was him.

"No," I mumbled, stumbling backwards. My heel sank into the softened soil over his grave, and I wavered there, trapped between him and his skeleton, my mind spinning out of control.

"I buried you." My tongue, numb with dread, fumbled around the words. And yet, an impulse to reach out for him washed over me like a tsunami.

Even as I dug my fingers into my arms to resist, I noticed how different he looked. An inhuman pallor, lips cracked and blue. Skin falling away from the dark circles under his eyes scabbed lesions twisting along his neck and down his arms. Everything but his eyes oddly washed of color, as if it had all been drained from him and into the newly-formed flowerbed behind me.

"I told you I would never leave," he said, and the smile that accompanied it still etched creases into his face, but they were canyons now. Bottomless things, places you could fall into and find yourself lost forever with no way out.

He reached for me, fingers crooked. I ducked, sidestepping, and stared at the ground beside his feet. "I wish you would."

His arm fell. Cautiously, I raised my eyes. Guilt swelled in my gut as his mouth fell open, eyebrows tilted upward in an earnest question.

Why?

And in my head, I answered stronger than I ever could out loud: Because you broke me.

I mouthed soundlessly for a few seconds, trying to find the words to explain everything, but I had to give up.

Before he could take another step closer, I bolted. Breaths wheezing through my constricted throat, I struggled to pull in enough air. My footsteps pounded haphazardly now, kicking dirt and rocks every which way as I slipped and desperately tried to maintain my speed.

Please, I prayed. I'm faster now. Stronger. Better. Please, tell me I can finally outrun him.

I glanced over my shoulder, but only empty garden greeted me.

Still, he had to be back there somewhere. I surged forward, refusing to stop until I was home. A rock caught the toe of my shoe, sending me sprawling; the grit and gravel bit into my palms as I caught myself and forced myself back to my feet.

Panting, I rounded a corner. Ahead lay the driveway, drawing tears of relief. Almost there, almost there, almost—

I ground to a halt on the path that led to the doorstep.

He stood there, waiting as patiently as ever, hands clasped behind his back and his stare so impenetrable that it would have taken years to decipher.

I backed away, shuddering in the suddenly icy air. "Please," I gasped. "Just leave me alone. I want to be alone."

Tears mingled with the sweat on my face, a salty mess of everything I was and was supposed to be. I swiped at them viciously, willing them back in their place, but they continued to fall. So close. I had tasted freedom. I had felt it, the lightness that had come with it, the weight off my shoulders. For those months he had been gone, I had finally breathed.

I stumbled backward, but quick as a flash, his hand farted out and caught my wrist. Ice-cold, it sent a jolt up my arm and straight to my heart.

I clawed at his rough, scabbed arm, but he was too strong. He always had been. My knees gave out, smashing into the ground, but I barely felt the pain.

"Leave me alone," I begged at his feet, hating how quickly I had returned to the weak shell of a person I used to be. But desperation won out over strength, and I bowed my head. "Please. Leave."

His grip loosened—just slightly, but enough to make me look up. He regarded me with unreadable stoicism for a second that lasted an eternity, and then he finally sighed. The lines around his eyes deepened as he spoke.

"On one condition."