The Promise of Tomorrow - 11

Hey people. Just a quick note to say that this is the last chapter before the epilogue. I really would appreciate it if you comment, but if you don't, I still hope you enjoy this part (even though I know you won't).
:)
Mev
~*~
P.S: The picture is of Blaze thinking of Ella, and a scarily similar picture to what I see Ella like. This girl is a hundred times more like Ella than the last picture, so there you are!

P.P.S: To really set the mood for this, could you please listen to Sara Mclachlan's In The Arms of the Angel or Celine Dion's A New Day Has Come whilst you read it? Maybe listen to Sara's whilst reading and then listen to Celine's after you've finished the chapter to make you feel a little better? I'd really appreciate it if you listened to both songs - they seem too appropriate for Ella and Blaze for you guys not to listen to them.

I'm crying right now. You guys left comments saying I left you in tears. Writing this is a whole lot more emotional. I didn't intend for it to end this way; it was just how the story flowed, and I'm sorry for any tears I may dredge up from commenter's own memories or general depression.

Here's a youtube link for Sara's song;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw1HQn2mmN8

And here's one for Celine;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOGowScSUI

And I hope you enjoyed the story, regardless.

x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x~x

Ella died later that night.

The doctors insist that there was nothing they could have done, that they tried everything but couldn’t keep her with us, that it was just her time to go. Somehow, I didn’t believe them. There must have been something that they could do. Something. She didn’t deserve this.

When they told us in sad, monotonous voices, Ella’s mother instantly burst into tears. She became hysterical, and they carted her away too. Then I was left alone with the dying body of my girlfriend.

I sat and held her pale hand, squeezing it, wishing and hoping with all my heart for a response. The tears were uncontrollable now, and they ran down my face and onto her hospital sheets without pride. I sat there and sobbed, stroking her hair and face and dreaming of a miracle.

It didn’t come.

She was pale and ghostly - a shadow of her former self - but stunningly beautiful all the same. Looking at her still form, I felt empty and dead inside. The devastation took over my body completely. The tears were continual and unstoppable - I let them flow freely.

What was there to life, now that the reason I breathed had left me?

Even though she hadn’t completely gone, it was a sure thing. The last thing she did was open her eyes, and look at me in that tender, loving way she had adopted just for me. Her eyes - the eyes I fell in love with upon sight - looked beautiful. They shone a deep, depthless brown, and a single tear spilled onto her cheek as she saw me cry.

"Hey. Don’t cry. Please. Remember … even when I’m gone, I’ll always be with you. Remember me in your dreams, and find new love. Be happy. And…" her breath seemed to run out then, and her eyes fluttered closed. I clung onto her, not ready to let her go yet. Not now, not ever. Her eyes opened for the last time. "Kiss me."

Without hesitation, I leant over and touched her soft lips with mine for the last time. The kiss was brief and tender - our tears mixed and made the final embrace bittersweet.

When I made to pull away, lingering and hesitant, she smiled against my mouth and reached up to place her hand on my cheek limply. I held her fingers there, closing my eyes and then opening them slowly.

"I love you." She whispered.

I knew the exact moment she was gone. When her hand grew limp in mine, and her eyelids fluttered shut to seal the sight of her beautiful brown irises from me forever.

I was silent and still as stone.

A nurse came in, saw my unresponsive, distraught state, and left with tears in her eyes.

My life, which was so full and light and color just seconds before, had faded to dull, dreary shades of grey. It felt like part of me - the largest and most important part of me – had died along with her. I had never known sadness like this. When even thinking about tomorrow, or the next minute, hurt like crazy because it would have to be another tomorrow, another minute, without her.

I began crying after a few minutes. Quiet, anguished howls of pain that ripped from my chest like growls. I grabbed at her, clung to her tiny waist, lay my head against her still heart and cried like I had never cried before. I was on my knees beside her bed, my head lying on her mute form, my tears soaking the sheets, my fingers unwilling to loosen their grip from hers. I tore out of the building and strode blindly to my car. My fingers were shaking too much to fit the keys in the lock, so I dropped them and ran instead.

I ran and ran and ran, all the way to our special place, to collapse into the useless heap I was. I leaned against the rock where I kept my sketchbook and yelled, banging my fists against the ground. My shouts eventually melted into sobs. Uncontrollable sobs that I couldn’t stop.

Without even thinking about it, my fingers scrabbled for the book filled with drawings. Every one was of Ella. Ella wet, Ella dry, Ella smiling, Ella frowning, just Ella. The love of my life.

I flipped through each picture; the pictures that I never got to show her. Each drawing caused me to cry harder, but I went on, to torture or console myself, I didn’t know.

And then something happened.

When I got to the end of the book, an envelope fluttered out. My name was written across it in Ella’s neat, clear script. It was addressed to ‘Blaze, my Love’. A solitary tear spilled from my jaw and plopped onto the cream coloured paper.

With careful fingers, I opened it and pulled the letter out. It read;

My Darling Blaze,

By the time you find this, I will be in another place. I don’t know where that place is, or whether there is a place at all, but I wait for it in anticipation. I wait for it because anything would be better than the pain I feel right now, as I write this letter.

The pain can’t be physical, but it certainly seems so. It feels this way because I have taken your heart, just in time for it to be lost forever. And I didn’t want to do that. It was never my intention, Blaze, to hurt you the way I am hurting you right now. I am sorry.

But this letter isn’t meant to be one of apology, or sadness. This letter is my last chance at explaining just how much you mean to me.
Blaze, my darling, you are the reason I lived as long as I did. Your smile kept me breathing, your arms held me together. Your eyes were the things that kept my soul on this earth. You captivated me with that cheeky grin and those adorable dimples.

From the first time I saw you, I knew I would fancy you like mad. The first time I spoke to you, I realised it would go deeper than that.
I saw your eyes and I fell, I fell hard.

I think of them, and I think of emeralds, with glints of molten gold hidden in the irises. And when you kissed me, they burned like fire, and my soul and heart and very being was held captive yet again.
I saw you through new eyes, saw you as the most stunning star in the sky, as the fieriest sun in the universe. You shone to me, in only a way that complete devotion could illustrate in the holder’s eyes. You were suddenly tying me there, holding me incarcerated beneath the heavy lock of your beautiful eyes, and I had let you willingly, made you the core of my existence.

Because, you see, that was when I first fell in love.

This letter is to tell you that I will always be with you. When you feel alone, remember my hand in yours and marvel, the way I did so many times, at how we fit together so perfectly. Whenever you need somebody to hold you and nobody is there, remember my arms around you, and think, as I did so many times, how they were made just for you, for the very purpose of cuddling you.

Remember me, and smile, and then, I beg of you, forget.

Forget me, and learn to love again. I have stolen your happiness once – don’t allow me to do it again. I am the stars in the sky, I am the wind in your hair, I am the sun on your eyes as you close them – but I will not be the core of your existence.

Find somebody worthy of your love, and love her. That is my last wish.
Oh, and that you wipe those tears away right now! I told you not to look so sad, and there you are, crying while you read this. My silly, wonderful, gorgeous, smart, funny man.

And one more wish - forget me but do not forget this;

Blaze De Luca, you are my sun, my stars, my every breath, and I shall wait for you till the end of all eternity; until I can find you safe, here in my arms, once again. Until I can heal my torn soul by taking your hand again, by kneeling at your feet. You stole my heart - but I forgive you, because you treated it so well. Remember this - I’ll love you till forever and beyond.

You were my life, and now you’re my destiny.

I love you.

Ella Jade Goldman (De Luca),

The girl who’s heart you’ll always have.

I finished the last words with tears streaming down my face, and the ghost of a smile playing on my lips. I was right.

Ella doesn’t deserve this, this cruel world full of sadness.

She deserves only the best.

She deserves heaven.

And heaven is what she’ll get.