I'm Still Here

It was his mother's burial. It took longer than he thought it would take to get to this point because of all the preparations that he needed to do on his own. The Pyre was set up and everything happened way too fast. Some friends from the hospital came over to see her go, but even still he was there alone, standing in a crowd of people he did not know. They gave him condolences and good wishes, but really, he just wanted them gone.

After it was all done, and his mother's ashes were finally stored properly, Damian walked over to the mat in the center of his room and sat down on it. His mother would usually sit down here with him and he would massage her shoulders after a long day of work. He would be the one talking to her and trying to make her laugh so she would not be too stressed. She was always there. Always trying her best. She was dead.

For the first time since she died, Damian felt like crying.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Damina suddenly hears someone at the door and he wondered who the hell that was! Can't they just get the fuck away and leave him alone!? He walked out to the door and opened it tiredly, only for his eyes to widen when he saw Lucy standing there.

She was barefoot and she looked like she had been running. This was the first time she had ever come to his house and she felt like she was intruding on his personal space. She was so unsure of herself. Should she come in? Would he want her here?

Lucy just heard about the burial today and she didn't know that it would happen so soon. She came over as quickly as she could!

Lucy opened her mouth to ask if he was okay but before she could say a word, Damina hugged her tightly!

Lucy was shocked that he was the one to hug her but she easily hugged him back. They walked into the house after separating and then he sat her down on his mat while he went to get her some tea. She refused at first, but he really didn't give her a choice. She was his guest so it was the least that he could do.

He didn't know how he got to this point. He remembered coming back from making the tea and giving it to her before sitting beside her. Then suddenly, they were kissing and touching, and clothes came off and were thrown all over the place.

Damian went slow and from the moans that he was hearing from Lucy, he knew that she loved it like that. She was a virgin, just like him and it took a few tries for them to finally get it right. He came too fast the first time and he knew that it was not the best he could do. The second time was much better and much faster.

He remembered whispering that he loved her and she told him that she was sorry. He didn't know what that meant, but he didn't care. He knew she loved him too.

On the side, the tea was lying on the floor, forgotten. In the morning, he woke up to an empty house.

He didn't know how he got to this point, but he finally knew. Sex wasn't overrated.

Damian thought this would be the last time they would meet. A boy stuck in place, and a girl running from the world.

...

After that day, Damina never met her in the street again. He didn't see her near his school and she never showed up near his house. It was like she vanished. His days were gloomier and gloomier. His nights were lonlier and lonlier. It was like he was just a man standing in the middle of a typhoon. Everything around him was so fast but he was still here. Stuck in place.

He never picks up unknown numbers. That was something that he made into a rule. It was always weird to Lucy and she would always tease him about his fear of meeting new people. But this time, he picked up on the third ring.

"Is this, Damian...?"

The person on the other side was crying. Damian rolled his eyes. Now what?

"It's Lucy..."

Damian only heard white noise afterward. Only three words got through to him. Emergency room. Hospital. He ran!

The hospital was the same one where he first met her. She was always around him. She never went to school.

She never even had a school uniform! How could he be such an idiot!? He never even thought to ask her! He never bothered to ask her why she was always so free. Didn't she have any responsibility? Didn't she have a future to worry about?

She was lying so still when he walked into the ICU. Damian has never seen anyone lie this still since his mother and he didn't know how he was so calm. He went to seat at her bedside and he looked at her sleeping face. Her entire body was covered with a white sheet and she looked so calm as she slept.

He met her parents just before coming in here. Her father was a Japanese man with brown hair and her mother was a foreigner that looked like a model. She was the one that called Damian and Damian couldn't help but think that she was a crybaby. At least that is what Lucy would have said if she saw how much her mother was crying.

"Hey... You came?"

Damian was jerked out of his thoughts by a barely lucid Lucy. She tried to turn to him but he shook his head and told her to lie still. She looked so weak.

"Sorry, I'm a little tired, but I'll be fine. I don't even know what those doctors are saying. They don't know anything,"

The doctors were the best heart surgeons in the world. If they heard what she said they would probably be scandalized. They definitely knew something.

But Damian didn't say that to her. Instead, he smiled at her and spoke.

"You look like shit,"

Lucy laughed! It was the first time that her parents had heard her laugh in close to two years and they could believe it! They didn't know who Damian was and they always wondered who the person that Lucy always went to meet was. They looked at Damian like he was the second coming of Christ or something.

Damian saw her bring her hand out of the bedsheet and he stretched his hand out and took her own. She smiled at him and then spoke.

"Hey, don't just look so gloom. I'm not going to die today.."

Damina didn't know he had been crying. Huh? Strange. He didn't remember when last he cried. Not even at his mother's burial.

"If you ever feel like you're tired then just raise your hand up and shout 'I'm still here!!!'. The world will definitely answer you back."

Damian couldn't even laugh this time, but he squeezed her hand in return.

"I love you,"

"I love you too. And I'm sorry, for making you fall in love with me,"

Damian wanted to tell her that it was okay, but he couldn't. It wasn't okay. He was losing her. Lucy felt tears come to get eyes and she put her other hand on her face as she finally cried.

"I'm so sorry, Damian. Please, please don't forget me,"

And that was the last time he met her. A crying boy, and a dying girl.

.....

Lucy didn't die that day, just like she said she wouldn't. She died the next day. Damian always knew that she had some sort of power. She even beat death for one more day. Badass.

....

It was autumn that day. The leaves were brown and the graveyard was eerily quiet. The afternoon sun didn't do much to bother Damina. He was so used to doing this that it had become a religion to him. He walked along the dirt path leading up to the graves and grinned as he found the level ground again! He hated stairs!

He had on a pair of black slacks and a black shirt that he usually wore to the college where he taught.

He was always using this path to leave the campus so it didn't matter to him when he went out of his way to come here every week.

Her grave was like a light in a sea of darkness. It sat between two other graves and had a small bed of leaves on top of it. There was a flower sitting on the side and Damian knew that her mother was the one that left it there. Damian went right up to her grave and sat down behind it. He rest his back on her headstone and sighed as he brought out a cigar and lit it.

He wasn't a smoker, but he always did this on just one day of the month. Just for her.

"Hey, Lucy. Can you hear me up there...?"

A puff of smoke floated into the air.

"... I'm still here,"