❝I love you past the moon and miss you beyond the stars.❞
-Jim Storm

***

I have never screamed as loud as I did in the moment I finished the letter. I screamed, I cried, I dropped the letter and I ran down the steps. I couldn't answer my mother as she asked me what was wrong. I couldn't even find it in me to care. There was nothing I cared about now, nothing except making it to the hospital. If I could get there in time, maybe, she wouldn't do this. Maybe, they won't pull the plug. She's only seventeen for Christ's sake, she has her whole life ahead of her.

"Clark! Clark! You're not leaving this house until you tell me what's wrong!" My mother screams as I try to make my way out the door. I try to push past her, but I don't have enough strength inside of me to do it. I don't have enough energy to push her away, to make my way through. However, if I don't, it might be too late, she might already be taken from me.

"I have to go," I sob, hoping she can understand me. "There's — there's a letter on my floor. It's p – pink. Read it, it explains — it explains it all. I have to — go," I cry, my words a mixture of tears and breath as I push past my mom.

I push past the chilly wind, as I make my way to my truck, only having Maya on my mind. Her beautiful brown eyes, her long blond hair. She was what was worth it. She was my rainbow, she is my rainbow. I won't accept that she's gone. I won't accept that she's no longer here with me. She can't leave me, despite it all making sense, despite everything coming into place, she can't leave me. She promised she'd try, that she would try so we could be together. She promised we'd visit the universe together, her in her rocket while I sat on the sidelines and fixed whatever needed to be fixed. Together forever. She promised.

I've never felt pain like this. I've felt pain, but I've never felt crushing pain like this. It's as if my heart is being stabbed, as if all the oxygen has left my lungs. It's as if there is nothing left inside of me, as if this is a nightmare I'll never wake up from. I love her, I love her so much, and I refuse to lose her. Losing my uncle is one thing, but I can't lose her. I know I can't lose her. She's all I got besides my family, she's my light and happiness. She's the person that understands me, the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life making happy. I love to make her happy. I just love her.

I can barely see as I drive down the road. My eyes are clouded over with a layer of tears, that I'm almost thankful for the red light, giving me the chance to compose myself. However, I'm not thankful for it, either, for every spare moment away from her is a moment I could lose her. She can't be gone, not yet, I didn't get to say goodbye. That letter isn't enough for me, for I need to kiss her, to hug her, to love her before she goes. She can't go. She can't leave me in this world, for she's my happiness. She's my rainbow, she brings the light into my life. I don't want to know life without her, for I already know I couldn't do it. I can't live without her. I can't.

My foot steps on the gas as soon as it turns green, and I just hope she's at the hospital I'm driving to. I hope this isn't happening somewhere else, for if I don't get there in time, if I lose her, I could never move on. She'll leave me with a void that will never be filled by anything, but instead will only grow larger as the time passes by. She's the only one for me, I'll never love anyone like I love her, I'll never open up to anyone like I've opened up to her, I'll never understand anyone like I understood her. She brought me true joy, and as I think back to her happy smile as I showed her we were in front of the Adler Planetarium, I lose it once more.

My rusty truck, the truck that holds so many of our memories, our laughter, our tears, our conversations, is filled with large cries. I scream, I yell, I shout, for how could this have happened? How could she be taken from me? I didn't get enough time with her. I didn't get to tell her all I wanted to. I didn't get to share with her the special moments I wanted to. I didn't get to watch her walk down the aisle in a white dress, her eyes full of tears as she realized she really was going to spend forever with me. She didn't give me any of that, all I asked for was her and that's all I got. I didn't get a wedding, I didn't get to show her all of the world, I only gave her Chicago. I gave her Chicago and she gave me herself like I asked. Only, she didn't give me all of her, for she didn't make it official. Despite knowing I would be hurting far more now if she did, if I did have her wholly, I can't help but wish she still gave me herself. I would have only had her for a weekend, but that would be a weekend I would never be able to get again, a weekend I would cherish for the rest of my life. The rest of my long life, the life she deserves to have.

She doesn't deserve this tumor, not her, she deserves anything but this. She deserves a long happy life. A life that she doesn't even get. She doesn't deserve death. She deserves to reach out and touch the real stars, she deserves to see Cassiopeia in person, she deserves to have the title of Astronaut Maya. NASA may not consider her to be an astronaut, but she was to me. She is to me. She's not gone, she's not gone, she's not gone. I have to believe my love is still here. I have to believe she hasn't left me. I have to believe her bastard of a father didn't really take her from me. I'm going to put him in jail. I'm going to put him where he deserves if she is gone. Even if she isn't gone, I'm putting her parents in jail. If she is gone, I feel as if it's part my fault. I promised to protect her, to be there for her. I promised, yet here I am driving down the road sobbing like I've never sobbed, all because I couldn't protect the person I loved most in this world. I didn't take her away from her terrible life, I didn't do what I should have. Yes, I've called the police on her parents tons of times, but Maya would cover for them, knowing the beatings would be worse if she didn't. I should have taken her away from all of that. I did everything for her, except for what she needed the most. I gave her the universe, but I couldn't give her the home she deserved. She deserved to live with me, and despite her telling me no all those times I would ask, despite her begging me to drop the conversation — it resulting in an argument — I should have just done it. I should have done everything I could to take her away from that. I should have done everything I could to have provided the life she deserved. She deserved everything, and when it all comes down to it, I gave her nothing.

The hospital comes into view, and I end up driving over the curb as I pull into the parking lot. I don't care, though, I don't care about anything except finding her. I need to see if she's okay, I need to see if my baby is still alive.

Baby.

I never got to call her baby.

My sneakers slap against the pavement as I run inside, asking anyone around me if they know where Maya Anne Edwards is. If they know where her room is. If they can tell me where I'll be able to find her. "Please," I beg, my voice cracking as I stand there, the tears rolling off my cheeks in waves I didn't even know I could cry. There was pain before, but there is something else now. There are things worse than pain, emotions, feelings, this is worse than pain. This is all the bad I've ever pushed down, trying to remain happy, rising to the surface. I hate how I feel, and as I beg the nurses around me to tell me where Maya is, I feel as if I'm starting to hate life.

Perhaps, I only believed life was beautiful was when Maya was in it. Perhaps, she's the only reason that makes me so positive and happy. Perhaps, this story isn't really about me, but about her. After all, she was the one it was all for. The adventures, the laughs, the smiles, it was all for her, but look where it got her. It got her nowhere except a brain tumor and a hospital bed.

"WHERE IS MAYA EDWARDS?! IF SOMEONE DOESN'T TELL ME WHERE SHE IS — "

"You're looking for Miss Edwards?" A voice interrupts me from behind. Turning around, I look down at a short nurse in blue scrubs and a clipboard in her hand.

"Yes, yes! Where is she? Tell me, please," I beg, trying to stay composed. Trying so hard not to cry, but that's all I can do. When you might lose a person you love dearly, a person that brought you nothing but joy, you'd cry, too. Anyone would cry, anyone would act the same way I am right now.

"I'm sorry, sir, she passed about — " she pauses to look down on the watch sitting around her wrist. "Fifteen minutes ago. Brain tumor," she tells me, as if I don't already know.

Her words barely reach me, and I feel as if all of this is just one large joke. That someone is going to jump out with a camera and tell me I've been Punk'd. However, I know that's not the case.

"I didn't get to say goodbye," I whisper through clenched teeth. "I didn't get to tell her goodbye!" I shout, the tears continuing to fall down my face in a frenzy as I try to stop from shaking. I try to keep myself together, but why? Why should I even try when it doesn't even matter. She's gone. My love, my rainbow, my happiness, is all gone.

"I'm sorry, sir," she whispers, but I don't want her pity. I don't want her to tell me she's sorry, for she doesn't know me. She doesn't know my situation, and hearing she's sorry is the last thing I need right now.

"Where is she?" I ask, trying to remain calm, trying to compose myself so I don't seem as upset. So I don't seem as crazy, despite knowing I'm everything but crazy. I'm not crazy, I'm just feeling something that I've never once felt before. As if this really is just a dream, for how could she have left me? How could she have gotten a brain tumor and not have known it? How could everything we went through this weekend, be gone in such short notice? Be gone without even a goodbye? I didn't get to tell her goodbye.

"You can't visit her, sir. Only family can be in there," she tells me, and I find myself laughing through the tears.

"Family?" I say, before the laughter goes away and it turns into anger. I don't get angry often, but I can feel an anger build up inside of me, an anger that I have never felt. Tragic situations make one do things they wouldn't normally do, and this is the perfect example of that. I wouldn't normally be this upset, but then again, I wouldn't normally be asking to see my best friends dead body, either. "Those people in that room may be her parents, but they're everything except her family. Do you know how she got that tumor? Her father pushed her around too much. You know why they brought her here? So he wouldn't end up in jail, for they couldn't risk her dying on them. She was nothing to them. Nothing!" I yell, the tears returning. "And what did I do? Nothing! I didn't know this was going on! I promised to protect her and now she's dead! My Maya is dead," I whisper, not being able to talk anymore, not being able to do anything except stand there and cry, the reality of this not being a dream is finally setting in. She's gone. She's literally gone.

"Come with me, I'll take you to her, okay?" The nurse says after a moment of standing there just staring at me and watching me break down. "Then you can tell me about everything. About how they treated her. This needs to be reported, all right?"

I just nod. I hold my hands over my eyes, rubbing them profusely as I try to wipe away the tears. The tears that don't act as if they're going to leave me any time soon.

"O – okay," I choke out after a moment, while she takes my arm and guides me down the hall. "Did she suffer? Tell me she didn't. She deserved a lot of things, but suffering and death isn't one," I sniffle, my voice not even sounding like my voice. I can't even recognize myself from crying so hard, my throat turning raw.

"She didn't suffer — "

"Clark, my names Clark," I mutter.

"Clark Jones?" She asks, and for the first time since she told me family could only see Maya, I look at her.

"Yes," I breathe. "Did she mention me? What'd she say?"

"She said you would stop by. She said that whatever you ask for, for us to comply. She said you were her rainbow? I don't know if that means something, but — "

"It does," I interrupt her. "It means a lot."

I can't talk anymore, for it feels as if my throat is going to fall into my stomach, and I can barely see from all of the tears rolling down my face, but at least I'm not screaming. I'm not screaming, but I'm still angry. Her parents killed her, and they come back here to stay with her? They have no right. Just like Aunt Margaret had no right to cry at Uncle Edmund's funeral. It was her fault he died, just like it's their fault she died.

"They're not here anymore, they left. Can you tell me their names, though? And do you have evidence backing up what you've told me?"

I tell the nurse everything. Everything Maya had ever told me about her parents, everything she wanted me to keep a secret. I tell her about calling the cops on Maya's parents over a dozen times, of how I tried to protect her but she wouldn't always let me. I then realize as I tell the nurse all of this information, that perhaps every promise shouldn't be kept. For just like how Maya broke hers, she couldn't help it. She was dying, she was fading away and she promised those promises to me to keep me happy, to give me hope. I understand why she did it, no matter how hard it is. Just like she'd understand me telling the nurse all that I am. She'd understand why I was doing this, for if I can't protect her in life, I'll protect her in death.

"Thank you," the nurse replies after I finish telling her everything. After I finish telling her everything through the tears and hand motions of trying to explain what I'm saying, despite it being muddled with cries and heavy breaths. "And we'll find this letter at your house?"

"Make a copy, I need it. Don't send it to a lab, don't put it in court, if you do, please let it be of a copy," I beg, realizing I've done a lot of begging lately. "That was the last — the last thing she gave me."

"I understand. What's your address?" She asks, and instead of telling her where I live, I call up my mom from the nurses phone. I call up my mom and find her sobbing into the phone, which makes me cry even harder. It takes a long time for us to get through to one another, but when we finally do, I tell her to make a copy of the letter and bring it down to the hospital. I tell her the police are going to get involved, and she tells me okay, before hanging up. At least, I think. I think she told me okay. I could barely hear her through her pain. So much pain, from such an unnecessary situation. Maya shouldn't have died. She shouldn't have gone through all of this. I still haven't gotten the chance to tell her goodbye, yet.

We stand there waiting for my mom to arrive with the letter, before the nurse walks me to Maya's room and lets me go in. I tell Mom to wait for me, for I want this moment to be just Maya and me. I want it to be just us, the original recipe, just like how it used to be. Engineer Clark and Astronaut Maya.

However, when I walk into the room, when my eyes look over her still body, her body where her soul no longer is, I lose it once again.

I slump into the chair next to her hospital bed, and place my face in my hands, crying why, why why, over and over again. She doesn't look any different. She doesn't look sick, she doesn't look sad, she looks like Maya. She looks like the same girl that would laugh as we lay on my balcony, talking about anything and everything. She looks like the girl that would tell me she loved me all the time, even before we confessed our feelings to each other. She looks like the girl that I fell in love with, the girl that made my world brighter, the girl that thought she was the wagon, when in reality she was the star. She looks like my rainbow, my happiness, exactly how I remember her only hours ago. Still beautiful, only no longer broken.

She doesn't have to deal with her family. She doesn't have to deal with the abuse. She doesn't have to deal with all the cruelness this world has to offer. She's free, she's on Cloud 9 with Uncle Edmund, and I should be happy. I should be happy she no longer has to suffer through the hell she did, I should be happy, but I can't find a single inch of happiness in this situation. I can't even force a smile as I drop my hands, only to face her. Her glory and magnificence. She wasn't just Maya Edwards, she was the Maya Edwards, my Maya Edwards. She was everything I've ever loved, smashed into one human. Her soul was glitter and her personality was neon. Her outfits finally made sense to me. That was the only thing I didn't understand fully about her, but I get it now. I get it now, and I finally find myself smiling.

"Even when you're not here, you still amaze me," I whisper, before the smile fades and the tears return as I reach out and take her hand in mine. Her cold hand that was once always warm. "I didn't get to say goodbye," I mutter, my voice being muffled from the emotion building up inside of me. "I didn't get to tell you everything I wished I could. I didn't get to share with you everything I wished I had. I didn't get to show you everything I wished I could. You deserved to see far better places than just Chicago. I didn't — I didn't give you what you deserved," I breathe, taking a break to try and catch my breath. "I didn't protect you, give you my family, take you away from your family like I should have. That's what I should have done, Maya, and because of that — because of that, you're no longer with me. You're not here. You promised me we'd grow old, that I would taking you dancing when we were old. Is this why we danced in our hotel room? Because you knew — " I stop, trying to remain calm, trying to remember how to breathe. "Because you knew you were leaving? Is this why you told me to keep burning bright no matter what? You knew you were leaving me, Maya, and you didn't even tell me. I wouldn't have looked at you with pity, I would have just loved you. I would have wanted to be with you still, for a weekend together is better than one alone. I don't blame you, though, for if I was in your shoes, I would have done the same. It makes me wonder, though, if there are other secrets that you never told me. Things you never shared and kept to yourself. After all, only a person knows their own secrets." I think about this, wondering if there was anything she kept from me, and the thought makes me feel betrayed. I told her absolutely everything, only it doesn't seem enough now. Despite us talking about pretty much everything, I wish we could still go through those same conversations, as long as I got another one.

"I wanted to marry you," I begin again, blinking back the tears, for my eyes are burning tremendously. "I wanted to watch you walk down that aisle. I wanted to watch you wear a puffy white dress, while confessing your love to me at the alter. We should have got married this weekend, for even if it was only for a day, it would be okay to me. It would have been more than okay. I would marry you any day, even if it were for only a minute. That would be the best minute of my life," I half laugh, before the amusement leaves, and nothing but the sadness remains.

"You made me happy, Maya. You were what my happiness was made out of, and now that you're not here, I don't feel happy. I don't want to be happy. I just want to lie down and never get back up. You're not here to encourage me, to hug me. You're just not here. You didn't deserve this," I breathe through clenched teeth. "You deserved to touch the stars, to reach out into the galaxies. You deserve to be in space, in your rocket where you belong. We deserve that, for it was you and me forever, right?" I mumble, my eyes still leaking as I sit there and squeeze her hand harder than I probably should. I'm just not ready to let go. Not now, not after I find out she loves me back. Not after everything was working out, when happiness was pouring back into my life, happiness that was taken away by Uncle Edmund.

"You once told me you didn't want to go to bed with me, only to wake up alone. That's what I did this morning. I woke up alone, I woke up without you beside me. You weren't there, you did to me exactly what you didn't want done to you. You didn't give me a goodbye kiss. You didn't give me a goodbye hug," I swallow, trying not to get too loud, for this is personal, I don't want anyone else to hear this conversation. "You gave me a letter, a letter that doesn't have your voice, doesn't have your kiss, doesn't have anything but your writing. I'm glad you wrote it, though, for it gives me a last piece of you. It gives me a piece of what I've lost. I've lost you, but I'm not ready to let you go, I'm not ready to say goodbye. If you really are in heaven, if you really are my guardian angel, just know that I won't give up. I don't want to keep burning bright, but if that's what you want me to do, I will try. I will try for you, Maya, for you're what's worth it. I just wish you would have said goodbye in person. I wish you would have kissed me one last time."

I can't do this any longer, for despite knowing there is more I want to say, it's not easy to sit here and say any of this. It's not easy to look over her cold body, knowing that's she's not with me. Knowing that the person who I was just laughing with the previous day, is no longer here. I know that nothing to ever come my way, will hurt as much as this does. There is nothing out there as painful as the ice that seems to be tearing through my chest as I look at her, her blonde hair wild, her brown eyes hidden under her eyelids. Even in death, she's still the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Inside and out, I just wish there was more time I could spend with her. I just wish I had more time. I wish she had more time.

Standing up, I lean over her and close my eyes. I need to say goodbye, I need to try for her, I need to be what she knew I was. And as I press my warm lips against her cold ones, my tears falling onto her pale face, I whisper my goodbye, before I drop her hand and walk out of the room. I may not be ready for a goodbye, but sometimes you have to do things you aren't ready for, for the right thing isn't always the easy thing.