Flashes of Mia and I went off like fireworks in my head. The first time our eyes met in the mess hall, her small smile in the bathroom when we first talked, the late-night rendezvous’, chasing her in the library, reading to her, the lovemaking, the fighting for each other, the tears, her golden eyes, the paper roses, the dancing, the stars, the sunrises, proposing, our drunken nights, the wedding … Falling into this maddening love that stayed forever and ever …
“No,” I wiped my face into my sleeve and cocked my head, “you don’t fucking get it.”
Then I pulled the trigger.
“Oliver!” Adrian shouted, my eyes weighing heavier and heavier. He’d taken off my black hoodie, and I had it pressed against my side, but it wasn’t helping. My white tee soaked in blood. It was everywhere. The color of rage. The color of love. How is it possible? “Hang in there, mate. We’re almost to the hospital.”
“No,” I croaked, shaking my head. With the gun still in my grip, I clenched both my eyes from the white blistering pain, my body begging to pass out. But, I knew Mia. She was waiting up for me. “Take me home.”
“You’ll never make it,” Adrian nervously explained, whipping the car to the right, and my head dropped over the passenger side window.
I lifted the gun over my thigh and pointed it at him. “Take me the fuck home,” I seethed through gritted teeth. We couldn’t be more than ten minutes out. I could make it to her.
“Fuck, Oliver!” Adrian slammed his palm against the steering wheel once before he shook out his hands and released a drawn-out breath. “I’ll take you home, but I know you, and you won’t fucking shoot me,” his voice shook, and his hand came down over the gun as he took it from my clenched fist, “You have to trust me, mate. Blindly. It’s your turn to trust me blindly, Oliver. You hear me?”
Nodding, my hand relaxed over my thigh as Adrian drove with his knees, wiping down the gun with his shirt. Going well over a hundred miles per hour, he dropped the gun inside the door pocket and snatched his mobile phone from the cup holder, punching in numbers before bringing it to his ear. Adrian’s wide eyes flicked over to me. “Yeah. This is Officer Adrian Taylor,” he turned his frightened gaze back to the road, “I’m undercover with SC and O ten. I have a twenty-three-year-old male in critical condition. Gunshot wound to the abdomen. I need an air ambulance right away …”
My brows pinched together. “A?” It hardly came out against the pain.
Adrian cocked his head back to me as he continued into the phone, “My location?” his breathing was heavy and voice shaken as he looked over my condition, and I squeezed my eyes closed as we hit a turn. “The Masters cottage in Surrey …”
The rest drifted as I shifted to my side, cringing from the pain, and with two fingers, I pulled out Mia’s Christmas gift and clutched it into the palm of my hand. My head rocked against the window, and I turned my gaze to the sky, pinning it on the iridescent moon for the rest of the way.
In record time, Adrian pulled outside my cottage. My insides were on fire. The pain was unbearable, and every slow and short step toward our front door felt like a mile as our Christmas tree glowed through the window. Adrian shouted from behind me before the car door slammed, but I kept going with her gift clutched inside my fist, probably ruined. But she had to know.
Once I reached the front steps, I shoved my bloody hand into my pocket and pulled out my keys. After a few attempts, the door opened, and I collapsed against the door frame.
Then there she was, coming from our bedroom and appearing before me in her red pajamas and her hair a wild mess.
Her presence, it was overwhelming.
I dropped my arm to my side.
Mia.
I only saw her, and she saw me.
Horror flashed in her eyes, but I couldn’t wipe the smile from mine.
I made it home.
“We’re having a baby, love?” I whispered, and Mia’s hand flew over her mouth, tears slipping down her cheeks as she nodded.
A relieved breath escaped me as I sank down the door frame. Mia ran toward me, catching my fall as a scream sliced through her lovely lips and pierced the cold winter night. Together we slid to the floor, and she clutched my head against her chest as my numbed body laid out in a pool of warm blood. Desperate cries echoed through the black night as her trembling hands ran through my hair over and over.
Mia was right. There was something peaceful about death, especially in her arms. I could stay right here forever, listening to her heart beating. I’d memorized that sound. I could pick her heartbeat out in a lineup. But just as much as I’d known the sound, I felt it hard and steady inside my chest.
Because her heartbeat mirrored my mine.
Adrian tried to calm her and laid his hand over her shoulder, but Mia jerked and screamed out against him, shaking her head. The ends of her soft hair grazed my neck like the times she’d rolled her hips over me when we made love. I glanced up to see her cheeks soaked, eyes bloodshot, and snow flurries dancing wildly in her hair when my eyes became heavier.
“Ollie, please,” she cried, sobs sputtering through her trembling lips. “Open your eyes. Keep them on me.”
The pain was dissolving. I wasn’t scared anymore.
With the little strength I had left, my eyes blinked open, seeing the snow fall toward me under the same moon I’d talked to as a kid. My clenched fist opened at my side, and Mia’s gift laid in my palm. The only gift I could give her on our last Christmas—freedom.
The paper airplane fell from my fingers, and I looked up to see her screaming out, but her cries didn’t make it to my ears this time. Mia beat against my chest, but I didn’t feel it. Bright blue and red lights flashed all around, and I blinked once more to embed her golden-brown eyes into my soul.
And, finally, we were free …
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not afraid.
Not anymore.
For my entire life, I’d lived in a fantasy. I’d created my own world and got lost in it because I couldn’t believe in the reality around me. I was certain there was light and good out there. People who were kinder. Places that were warmer. Genuine smiles, honest laughs, and selfless love. It couldn’t all be a lie, because they were in stories. And inside every story, there was truth. Anything real was once imagined, and I found comfort in that, and until I could either find this world I’d believed in whole-heartedly or face my reality, I’d bring myself to the one I’d imaged because it was easier—safer.
I let Mia into my world, taking her away from the dark.
Together we danced, kissed, and made love behind the gates of our heaven.
And it was beautiful, poetic even.
I’m a man, but I’m not afraid anymore.
I’m not afraid to cry.
I’m not afraid to dream.
And I’m not afraid to pour my entire heart into her.
I wear my heart on my sleeve because I’m not afraid to get it broken. It was never mine anyway, it was everyone else’s. It was my mum’s when she made foolish mistakes, but she did the best she could under her circumstances. Perhaps she hasn’t always done the right thing, but she loved me the only way she understood how.
It was my brother’s because, despite the sickness inside his head, I couldn’t blame him. He was raised by a prostitute, with a brother who constantly escaped the harsh reality, and numerous punters with loads of advice on how to make it through in life. Perhaps he hasn’t always done the right thing, but he loved me the only way he knew how.