Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Leaning in, I kissed her, lingering as long as I could before she needed to breathe. When I pulled back, I saw her lips tremble. “I got you,” I said, hoping she knew that I meant more than just right now.
I laid Bonnie down on the bed and crawled beside her. She was wearing leggings and a sweater, and her hair was in a plait down her back. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful if she tried.
I wanted to say something as her brown eyes stared into mine. But I didn’t know what to say. My heart beat at a million miles an hour. Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
Bonnie moved her tired arm to my chest and shuffled closer to me. “You…saved him.” My eyes closed. “No,” she said, more firmly than I’d heard her speak in a while. I opened my eyes. Her hand lifted to my cheek. “I love to see your eyes.”
“Bonnie.” I shook my head. “Is he okay?”
Bonnie’s expression changed. She stared over my shoulder. “East is living with bipolar.” I stopped breathing, everything stilling. My lips parted, and Bonnie continued. “He has always found life…hard. But…he’d been better lately.”
“Bipolar.” I thought of his bright painting when I first arrived. The shouting over the mic in the Barn. The late nights. The drinking. The erratic behavior…then the darkness. The way the color around him changed from purples and greens to blacks and grays. His paintings. Him unable to get out of bed.
“He’s good at pretending he’s okay.” I faced Bonnie again and thought of his wide smiles around her but his moods when he was here. Bonnie’s eyes dropped. I threaded my fingers through hers. She stared at the entwined hands. “He’s tried before.”
I froze. Bonnie held it together, showing the strength she had inside her, even if her eyes screamed out their pain. “His leather cuffs.”
Realization dawned. “He slit his wrists before?”
Bonnie nodded. “He gets moments of extreme highs and horrific lows. When the lows hit, it’s the worst. He’s been up and down for years. But he’s been doing so much better lately.” Her shallow inhale was labored. “He’s admitted to being off his meds. He said he found them stifling, creatively. But he’s back on them now. He needs them to keep his moods even.”
We sat in silence for five minutes while she took a break. While she fought harder to breathe. I held her the whole time, just memorizing this moment. What she felt like beside me. Here, right now.
Everything that was her.
“He’s stable.” I relaxed as she spoke those words. Then Bonnie was looking into my eyes. Her lips trembled and her eyes glistened. “You were sent to me.” She smiled, purple lips spread wide. “To get me through this.” My vision blurred at her words. “Or to show me…how this felt.” I stilled. “Love…before it is too late.”
“No.” I pulled her closer. I wanted to pull her so close that the strength of my heart could breathe life into hers. “You’re going to get a heart, Bonnie. I refuse to think otherwise.”
Bonnie’s sad smile ripped my chest in half. “It is…getting harder.” She closed her eyes and breathed. Her chest rattled, and the movements were erratic. When her eyes opened again, she said, “I am fighting. I will keep on fighting…But if I have to, I can go…knowing how this felt.” She stroked my face, ran her finger over my lips. “What it felt like to love you. To know you…to hear your soul through your music.”
I shook my head, not wanting to hear it. “I won’t lose you,” I said and kissed her forehead. I inhaled her peach and vanilla scent. I tasted her addictive sweetness on my tongue. “I can’t live without you.”
“Cromwell…” I met Bonnie’s eyes. She swallowed. “Even if I get a heart…it is not always the answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“My body could reject it.” I shook my head, refusing to believe it. “Then there’s how long I can live beyond the surgery. Some people only live a year…some can live between five and ten.” She lifted her chin. “And…some can live for twenty-five years or more.” She lowered her eyes. “We won’t know until we know.”
“Then you’ll live beyond twenty-five years. You’ll do it, Bonnie. You’ll sing again. You’ll breathe and run and play your guitar.”
Bonnie tucked her head into me, and I heard her soft cries. So I held her tight. After a while the quiet hum of the oxygen machine and her starved breaths were the soundtrack to the moment. Until her breaths evened out, and she fell asleep in my arms.
But I didn’t sleep.
An opening sonata started playing in my head, keeping me awake. I closed my eyes and listened to the music telling me the story of us. Watched the colors dance like fireworks on the fifth of November. With Bonnie’s scent in my nose and her taste on my tongue, I let the symphony wash over me. I let it keep me warm.