Rebirth
When Tiffany had realized that it had been a while since Jessica had gone out to the balcony, she gave a quick glance down at her beeping wrist watch before making her way to the balcony as well. It reminded her of the time remaining before it stilled to its temporary silence. Half worried and half apprehensive about the oncoming sun light, her eyes patted down Jessica’s slender figure through the balcony’s French doors before giving a couple of taps on the glass to catch Jessica’s attention.
Jessica promptly gave a glimpse towards the source of the noise, and seeing Tiffany beneath her own reflection on the glass, she gave a weeping smile with the corners of her lips twitching.
Tired of smiling. Sick of pretending.
Tiffany opened one of the doors, and made her way on to the balcony, the chills of the morning cooling off the temperature she had gained inside the house. Closing the door behind her, Tiffany stood next to Jessica, to which Jessica responded with locking her arm with Tiffany’s. Tiffany answered with running her fingers through Jessica’s blonde locks, and in doing so, giving a chaste but affectionate peck to the corner of the blonde’s left brow.
“It’s cold outside.” Tiffany’s husky voice reverberated through the night air, seemingly disturbing the stars’ early morning melody. She then checked her watch, and the sun was going to rise very, very soon. But the last thing she wanted to do was to remind Jessica of the sun. Tiffany exhaled into the chilly night, but no sign of her breath was apparent.
Jessica revelled in the vibrations of her partner’s voice, snuggling close to Tiffany with her ear close to where Tiffany’s heart would have been, long ago. She knew, now, their voices were the only sounds that would come out of their bodies- no more of systemic thumps or the rush of their blood was to be heard.
“Don’t be silly,” Jessica breathed in Tiffany’s scent, only to find that she had none. She remembered reading from somewhere that when a person dies, so does their body odour in a matter of seconds. Jessica frowned as she fidgeted with the hems of Tiffany’s winter coat. It had been more than a ‘couple of seconds’ for them, she was stupid to think that taking a big whiff of Tiffany might make her feel more alive rather than remind her of the one fact she wanted to hide away. “I don’t feel it anymore.” Jessica raised one of her sleeves to check her arm, and the smooth milky skin that glistened beneath the lights of the setting stars unsettled her. The lack of goose bumps made her want to shudder.
“But you don’t like the cold.” Tiffany relented, engulfing the blonde in a bear hug underneath her winter jacket. Tiffany loved the sensation of Jessica squirming in her hold, her hands snaking their way around Tiffany’s waist and pulling her in. She will protect her, and she will give anything Jessica had wanted, anything to make her happy, and anything to make her smile. Tiffany’s insides churned at the memory of Jessica’s life spilling away from her like a broken wine bottle, and how she had forced Jessica to drink her own-
“Tiffany.” Jessica’s voice startled Tiffany out of her thoughts, and Jessica quietly took Tiffany’s hand that was giving flittering touches to her jugular. Her touches were directed at the scar on Jessica’s neck, resembling a bite sized marks consisting of what seemed like two holes.
“Sorry.”
Apologizing had become Tiffany’s everyday habit, the conviction in her tone dying each time she said it- Jessica had noticed. And like a rollercoaster ride, or the moon falling beneath the horizon each early morning, or the conviction in Tiffany’s voice, she knew that this charade couldn’t keep up for more than a couple of years, or even months at best.
“We should go back inside, baby.” Tiffany cooed at Jessica’s earlobe, pulling the blonde in closer as if there were any warmth to be shared. The beeping of her watch reminded both of them that they had ten minutes to get back inside before the sun rise.
Tiffany gave a small and gentle kiss full on Jessica’s lips before pulling away all too soon, urging Jessica to come along inside the house. The night sky above them wasn’t dark anymore but glowing purple, pretty to look at but an alarming caution for beings like Tiffany and Jessica.
But Tiffany faltered when Jessica’s hold on her arm loosened and finally let go, as if to signify that she was going to stay outside. “Tiffany.”
She called out to Tiffany once again, her voice calm but strained, as if she tensed up the back of her throat to gulp back tears, disdain, and regret. Tiffany knew this look, she’s seen it before. The last time she saw it was when the red sticky thick liquid that was too rich to be wine, drenched the carpets and Jessica’s once cherry coloured lips were turning blue. And she remembered all too well how that look intensified when Tiffany began trying to force the blonde into swallowing-
“Every day,” Jessica’s shaking whisper brought Tiffany back into reality and the sky grew orange, with clouds unveiling their silver linings. “It feels like I’m dying.”
Her confession slid out of her lips, each word broken and submerged in the wetness of Jessica’s sorrow.
“Baby…?”
The last thing Tiffany wanted to do was to understand.
“Tiffany,” And Tiffany’s stomach dropped at Jessica’s tone. “Do something for me?”
She hated that. She hated the fact that Jessica knew, KNEW, how Tiffany was willing to do anything for her, willing to give up anything for her. Her wrist watch chimed to signify the five minute mark.
‘Beep beep, beep beep.’
She knows it’s all inside her head when the beeps of her watch sounds like ‘Go back, go back’, warning her of the consequences of staying outside. The surroundings around her began to shine in bright orange, and it resembled the moment of a sun set, just before the sun disappears over the horizon. And just at the moment when it was getting confusing for Tiffany to differentiate between the sun rise and the sun set, she answered Jessica, and the beeping stopped.
“Anything for you.”
Jessica pulled Tiffany by her pinkie back to her side. She dug against Tiffany’s form once again, and Tiffany didn’t hesitate to cover the petite frame inside her coat.
“Can we watch the sun rise…?”
The last couple of years were a mounting disappointment for Tiffany. She got to have the chance to spend an eternity with the one she loved, but she had realized en eternity was far from the things Jessica wanted. Jessica wanted blue skies, sun glasses, the warm air, and children’s laughter in the parks- she wanted the sun to rise.
Tiffany would do anything to make her girl happy.
“I’d die to watch the sun rise with you.”
Her joke was crude, and unnecessary, but she knew that it would make the corners of Jessica’s lips to tug up in an ephemeral but brilliant smile.
“You know, you’re funny.” Jessica quipped, with Tiffany giving a short snort in response. However, Tiffany’s snort was quickly converted into a rigid expression, regarding Jessica in a grave way.
“This can’t be the only way.”
Jessica looked directly into Tiffany’s eyes, sparkling from the sun light, drinking in everything in a new perspective gained from the glow of sunshine beaming and peaking up from over the mountains. Her fingers were busy tracing Tiffany’s brow bones, her nose line, and her lips.
“It isn’t,” Tiffany began feeling the warmth of the sun, and if she was able, she would’ve begun sweating. “But I wouldn’t take any other way.” Jessica hadn’t stopped smiling, her eyes deep and pleading.
Sun rise was drawing close, too close, and Tiffany honestly was starting get scared. It had been a long time since she stood at the brink of death, and the last time she had been there, she was terrified and alone.
Tiffany urgently leaned in, studying Jessica’s unchanging expression of joy casting a shadow on her grim one. Jessica wordlessly placed her forehead against Tiffany’s. Tiffany was going to remember, she wanted to remember, she was never going to forget this face, this love, and that appearance of pure happiness and exhilaration. So Tiffany didn’t dare close her eyes and began engraving every nook and cranny of Jessica’s profile into her memory, and quickly scrambled her view all across the blonde’s frame hoping she wouldn’t ever forget this. She would eventually even try to memorize her shadow, the silhouette Jessica cast against the blinding orange light.
“Tiffany.” Jessica called for Tiffany’s attention back to where their eyes met, and she obeyed, with her neck snapping in flash to look at Jessica once again.
“Jessica.”
“…One last thing?...” Tiffany knew the sentiments she was feeling now would soon pass, and that she wasn’t losing anything. It was only now that everything was falling into place, how things should’ve been from the beginning… Or perhaps no, or she would have never met Jessica. Brief, it didn’t matter what would happen in (she checked her watch,) approximately ten seconds. She's already dead anyway.
“…Anything for you.” And she meant every word.
Jessica bit the corner of her lower lip, her eyes wide and her teeth slightly bared to reveal a crooked smirk. It was deafeningly beautiful, showered in the sunshine bath of the morning.
“Kiss me, Fany.”
4.
Tiffany didn’t waste a moment and dove right in. But even as she drank in Jessica’s plump lips, she, for the remaining life of her, kept her eyes open.
3.
Both of them relished in the comfort of each other’s embrace and almost were absolutely shocked at how good their lips felt. They were soft, sweet, and fierce enough to send electric fire through their veins. Wanting, yearning, desiring. All of them were to be found in the desperate cavern of Jessica’s mouth as Tiffany slipped her tongue inside.
2.
Tiffany was melting, and she didn’t know if it was Jessica’s kiss, or her sudden overwhelming body scent, or the rising sun. She had no idea, and she was confused at how her heart that doesn’t beat suddenly began to race in her rib cage at a speed close to exploding. But she figured as much that this was the part where she wasn’t supposed to ‘get it’ or ‘clue in’.
This was death, and she was back at the brink of it all.
But this time, she wasn’t alone, and it didn’t seem so dark and cold. Instead, it was scalding.
1.
When they both let go of each others’ lips, night was long vanished and sun had risen. Tiffany isn’t sure if Jessica was crying or not, she can’t see. Everything was bathed in golden light, and so were they. Her eyes never left the moist ones of Jessica, and she intently stared as they changed in colour from dark brown into bright rich gold to match her hair.
Those two golden orbs looked as if they were trying to explain, to make sense of it all, and to say-no, to scream, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’.
‘Love you more, love you more, love you more.’
And as she found it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open to study her love, something filled her long dead lungs and she gulped an immense amount of air, so much so that she felt that she was becoming air-
0.
A wrist watch clattered to the balcony floor, its wrist lock still fastened.
‘Beep beep, beep beep.’