I Died

by Sara Lufrano

I'm dead, he isn't. I know how it happened and everything, a cycling accident. A FedUP truck hit me.

I was mostly in my bike lane and bam, splattered all over the truck and the road.

My mom, dad, and little sister got paid handsomely from the settlement but he wasn't included since he was never legally family. He actually didn't even make it to any hearings.

I know that because I've been with him, watching him, since it happened.

I know it's sad when I look at him but I can't feel anything anymore. I see him cry, I see him lay in bed for days, I see him not eat, not answer his phone. I see him doing nothing and I know it's sad but there are no feelings in me.

We were each other's soul mates. We jokingly talked about how we wouldn't be able to move on if the other died. Super funny.

I had no idea I'd be watching him like this after and it makes me wonder who was watching me until I kicked it.

He goes to a job, he lost his real one after it happened. He lives in an unfinished basement of someone's house after losing our apartment. And he sits there, or lays there, and does nothing until it's time to get up and get on the bus to his job.

I'm not able to get his attention or move anything to show him I'm there, I can't talk to him during his dreams, or flicker lights when he cries out my name.

So I wrap my arms around him and lay there with him. I always wish that this didn't happen but I feel no pain.

Years passed and I'm still here with him.

He was true to his word about not being able to move on. He doesn't cry anymore but he's still by himself in this basement working jobs, doing nothing but watching Netflix.

He's thicker than he was a year ago but still not back to the size he was before. His hair and beard are long but he combs them and keeps them tidy. He got some new clothes that fit him better on his new frame.

He's handsome now just like he always was.

I don't know if anything is ever going to be different for me. I might watch him for his whole life and then when he dies maybe we'll be together. Maybe that thing will happen that when I do something good I go on to the true afterlife. Maybe I'll wander here forever even after everyone else is gone.

I know that I don't want to leave him. Even though I'm dead and can't feel anything I know I don't want to be anywhere except with him.

I've got my routine too. When he wakes up I give him a kiss and say “good morning, how did you sleep?” We sit together at his little outside bistro set that he has inside and have coffee. He gets ready, I give him his space then, and I sit and think or reread any text I can see.

I go to work with him. He's started riding a bike again. I understood what he was going through everytime he looked at a it. I'm glad because I really did enjoy it, now I just know it as a reasonable mode of transportation.

In the evenings and his days off we hang out and watch TV or he plays games on his console and then we go to bed.

Recently he's been in better and better moods. He gets texts more often now and he's got more friends at his job. It's good for him. He smiles too.

I do like seeing him this way. It's a small glimpse at how he was when I was alive.

It had been months and he's grown further away from me. There's a woman at his job that he talks with, that talks with him. He smiles and laughs when she's around. They like each other.

What she doesn't know is when he's home he cries because I'm gone. I think about what I would feel like if I could and it's satisfaction. But I only sit with him as he cries and doesn't respond to her texts, gently running my hand down his arm telling him everything will be okay.

It's a few weeks later. He's been looking at his phone a lot but no one is texting or calling.

The TV is off, it's sprinkling rain. He opens the door and steps outside. I follow him and stand next to him. He gets a shiver, I watch him shake it off.

“Leave me alone,” he says staring out in the rain.

I look to where he's looking but there's only the street, there's not even a house across the way.

“I don't want to keep doing this.”

He closes his eyes. He's crying.

“If I say out loud that I don't love you anymore will you leave me alone?”

Don't love me anymore? Who is he talking about?

His hands are fists, down by his side. “I don't love you anymore!”

I put my hand out to grab his shoulder and it goes right through him. I try again.

“I want to forget you!”

And then he was gone. Or I was gone. Either way we weren't together anymore. I know that in this moment I was happy that I didn't feel anymore.