I used to love the rain. Rain meant brightly coloured umbrellas, hot chocolate and misty windows. But, the reason I really loved the rain was because it reminded me of him. His voice sounded just like the rain, soft, smooth and beautiful.

Rain

It was raining as I walked towards the old school building. With no one in sight I pushed my weight against the thick glass door, it grudgingly creaked open. I looked up. Before me… stairs. I took deep breathes, and leaned against the railing, slowly, quietly, making my way up the stairs, trying not to disturb the building’s eerie silence.

The top

I walked to the top of the building, out the emergency, onto the school's roof. It was raining harder. I laughed and thought the rain ironic. The rain that I had loved was bidding me goodbye.

The edge

I crept towards the edge of the roof, peering below. I was high. The fall looked painful. I gazed at the school I had called home. The tar-paved courtyard, the paint-chipped basketball court, the AstroTurf football field. I gulped and blinked once. Everything blurred. I blinked again. Everything turned red.

Red

Red was the colour of love.
When you love someone, you're supposed to tell them everything.
I thought he did.
We would lie together during thunderstorms, cowering under the thick blankets, revelling in the darkness of the rain. He would hug me close and whisper that he was afraid. His fears were common, almost stereotypical, laughable.

Spiders, lightning, pain, darkness, death.

I would comfort him, patting his head reassuringly and whispering coos.
I was glad, almost ecstatic that someone needed me. I was needed. A new feeling that I hung onto like a drug.

You could say I was pathetic.
But my love for him blinded me from everything.
I failed to see how he slowly became weaker,
I failed to see how he would tire of our races to school
I failed to see how quickly he would run out of breath when he kissed me.

But I did notice

Yet I ignored it
That was even worse.
I loved him too much to believe he would ever leave my side

Waiting

When he failed to pick me up from school, I brightly laughed it off, making fanciful excuses for his absence, like he’d forgotten to get up that morning. I tried to ignore that fact that he wouldn't respond to the phone calls I sent him, each one becoming a little more desperate and worried. I lived on.

Realizing

I would visit him every day, as often as I could. The hospital gave me the creeps, everything was so white, so clean, the nurses so happy. The smell of death was everywhere.
Every day, I told myself I wouldn't cry. He needed someone to depend on, someone strong and bursting with hope. I tried to be that person. I failed. I was completely pathetic. Fat, ugly tears rolled down my cheeks as I lay next to him, holding his hand amongst the labyrinth of needles attached to his arm. I told him I was afraid. I whispered how I was afraid of losing him, afraid of living on without him. He just smiled and his rain-like voice seeped through my ears, calming me just like I used to calm him during the storms, telling me to live on, be happy, telling me he loved me.

He loved me.

When you love someone, you're supposed to tell them everything
He never told me he was sick. Instead, he would full each day with surprised, kisses, living each day like it was his last, because, in a way, it was.

If only.

If only I had known.
If only I had known that each time he hugged me, it would be one of the last times I would smell his forest-like scent.
If only I had known that each time he told me he loved me, it would be one of the last times I heard those words with his rain-like voice.
But I didn't know.
I was blissfully ignorant
And now he was gone

Gone

I stood on the edge of the roof, my skirt flapped in the wind, my glasses stuck close to my face, my hair whipped around my neck. I don't know what I thought as I stood there. Maybe, that if I died, he would somehow come back, and we would live on happily ever after like you hear so often in those fairy-tales.
Maybe I thought I didn't deserve to live on while he was dead. He told me to be happy. How could I be happy without him?
I opened my eyes and leaned forehead, making my decision.
I would jump.
He would be waiting for me at the bottom, ready to catch me.
And I would laughing at his blushing cheeks and say---

"I love you---"
I took my very last breath and

Fell...

I watched the sky, moving further and further away, the rain falling on my face
The light grey of the sky turned to a dark seeping red

It hurt

I had failed
I was pathetic.
I laughed weakly.

“I'm sorry, I died"

Forgive me.