"So I turned my essay in," I said as I walked across the college campus hand in hand with my boyfriend, Michael Guerin. "I dont think Mr. Schoeman liked it."
"Why wouldnt he like it?" Michael asked.
I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I mean, I know I kinda threw it together at last minute and all, but it was decent." I rested my head on his shoulder. "When I handed it to him, though, he gave me this look. It was like he was disgusted with me or disappointed in me for not turning in something better."
"I'll kick his ass," Michael offered. "Want me to? I'll go in there right now do it."
Although the idea was appealing, I declined. Michael didnt need to get into any trouble. "Thanks anyway," I said, "but I dont think you should do that."
"You're probably right," he said, "but I could go in there and tell him off. I dont have to resort to physical violence. I can just talk some sense into him."
"Maybe," I said, "if you want to. Maybe it would help. I mean, you would think the guy would have a little more sympathy for me, have some compassion. You would think he might be a little lenient with me for obvious reasons."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, placing his free hand on my stomach where our baby lay inside. "Two weeks, baby."
"Two weeks," I said. I leaned up and kissed his cheek. "I'm so excited."
"Me, too," he said. "We really gotta pick out a name, though."
"If it's a girl, we should name her Jamie."
I knew that he was cringing in that moment, and at any moment, he would start explaining that Jamie was also a boys name.
"Maria, I dont know about that. Im thinking maybe Jennifer or something. Or Elizabeth."
He continued listing off names, and I continued listening to him until the baby started to kick. I stopped in my tracks and touched my hand to my stomach. "Michael," I said.
"What?" he asked, immediately concerned. "Are you okay?"
I nodded. "Yeah, yeah, its just . . . the baby. It's kicking."
I could hear him smile, and he soon placed his hand next to mine. He laughed when the baby kicked hard, and I laughed too. "Do you feel it?" I asked him.
He nodded. "Yeah."
"It's amazing, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is." Michael and I have both always found creation interesting. The idea that there was something inside of me that the two of us made, something that was a part of both of us, a part of who we are . . . it was enough to blow my mind away.
Michael got down on his knees right in the middle of the campus and inched my shirt up just a little so that he could see the smooth skin of my stomach. We received a few strange looks from other students, but neither one of us cared.
"Beautiful," he commented, leaning in to press a feather-light kiss to my belly. "Beautiful Maria--" He kissed again. "--beautiful baby."
"I love you," I whispered quietly. I said those words often, at least twenty times every day. He did, too. I never got tired of hearing them. Michael and I have always been very vocal about our love for each other, even when we had just started dating way back in seventh grade.
He looked up into my eyes, and a small smiled played at his lips. I knew he was planning something, doing something, and I wasnt sure what. I gave him a confused look.
He shrugged and reached into his back pocket. "While Im down here . . ." he said. He pulled out a small black box, and my eyes lit up. My mouth dropped open, and shock engulfed me. He opened the box and revealed the most beautiful, sparkling, shimmering, diamond ring I had ever laid eyes on.
"Oh my god, Michael," I said in disbelief.
"Maria," he began, "you are the most amazing, astounding person I have ever met in my entire life. You make me laugh, you make me smile, and no one's ever been able to do that like you do."
I felt tears welling up in my eyes.
"You know I love you," he said. "You know I fall more and more in love with you every day. You know you're the most important person in my life, and you know I wanna spend the rest of my days with you. So what do you say? Maria DeLuca, will you marry me?"
I had always known that this day would come, but I never expected it to feel like this. In that moment, I was the happiest that I had ever been. I crouched down and flung myself into his arms, hugging him tightly and crying tears of happiness into his shoulder.
"Is that a yes?" he asked, rising to his feet and taking me with him.
"Yes! Yes!" I almost shouted. "Of course it's a yes!"
He ran his hands up and down my back and whispered into my ear. "I love you so much, Maria."
"Oh god, Michael. I love you, too."
We pulled back a little and he took my hand. He took the ring from the box and slipped it onto my left ring finger. Tears ran down my face as I stared at the ring and as the thought raced through my mind. I'm engaged!
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer to me again, kissing him passionately and excitedly. "Oh my god," I murmured against his lips. I was still in utter disbelief. We kissed again. "I can't believe it. I just . . . I love you. I can't seem to stop saying it."
"Don't," he said, running one hand up my back to tangle in my hair.
I pressed my forehead to his and said his name. Other words escaped me now, and the only word I could manage to say was the word that brought me to life, love, and happiness. "Michael . . ."
All at once, the unthinkable happened. There was a loud sound, a loud booming sound. A gunshot. My body jerked, and screams filled the air.
"Get down!" Michael shouted. He grabbed me in his arms and got me down to the ground with him.
There was another shot and more screams.
"Michael!" I shouted. There was so much urgency in my voice now, so much fear. Oh god!
He opened his arms up in front of me, shielding my body with his. I grabbed onto him and held on for dear life, afraid to let go.
There were even more shots. Three. Then three more. Then five more.
I was crying now, and I was probably hurting Michael. I was holding onto him so hard. "What's happening, Michael?" I asked him as if he were supposed to have all of the answers.
"I don't know," he replied. "I don't know."
I could faintly hear somebody yelling in the distance. "Get over here!" a man's voice was shouting. "Get over here now!"
"Michael?" I asked.
"Just stay here," he told me. "It's fine."
I buried my face in his chest, not wanting to see anything that was happening.
"You!" the boy's voice said. I heard Michael groan as the boy jabbed the gun into his back. "You two get over here now!"
"Come on," Michael said, sitting up. He gathered me in his arms and practically carried me to the cluster of students standing by the cafeteria building.
"Line up against the wall!" the boy shouted. For the first time, I looked at him. I looked into his eyes, and what I saw wasn't human. Not at that moment. He was enraged. Crazy. He terrified me.
"Michael?" I whispered, again in question as he backed us up next to the building. He locked his arms tightly around my waist, stroking my pregnant belly.
"Shh," he soothed. "It's okay. Were gonna be okay. Im not gonna let anything happen to you."
I knew he wouldn't.
I pressed my body into his, needing to feel his comfort more than ever in that moment, and he rested his head on top of my forehead. Even though he was trying to be strong, I could feel him shaking.
"This is nice," the boy commented. "All of the people who tormented me are now the ones being tormented."
I didnt know what he was talking about. I never did anything to him. I didnt even know who he was. He probably went to the university with me, but I didnt recognize him.
He twirled the gun around in his hands and walked past the people cowering against the wall. "Mr. Football," he said. "Little Miss Cheer. How does it feel?"
I heard people crying, and I forced myself to gain some kind of control. I didnt want him to hear me crying. I didnt want him to even know that I was there.
The smart kid, the boy kept commenting as he continued down the line, getting nearer and nearer to me and Michael. "The pretty girl. Do you like how this feels?"
More crying.
He stopped at me and Michael, and I dont know why. He kept twirling his gun around in his hands, occasionally letting it rest on Michael and then on me. "And you two," he said. "So in love. So perfect for each other. Do you know what I would give for that? Do you?"
We were both silent.
"Do you know what I would give to have one friend, to even have a chance at getting a girlfriend?" His voice rose to a shout. "DO YOU?"
I told myself to stay strong.
He was letting the gun linger on me now, only on me. Sometimes on my face, sometimes where my baby was. I felt Michael tensing, and seconds later, he stepped in front of me, protecting me.
"Don't point that gun at her," he told the boy.
"What are you gonna do about it, Tough Guy?" the crazy boy asked. He and Michael stared at each other for a long time, trying to stare each other down, and at last the boy looked away. He glanced around Michael's large frame and surveyed my body again. "Knocked her up," he said, stating the obvious. "Wonder if it's a boy or a girl." He shrugged. "We could always cut her up and find out."
That was all it took to set Michael off. He swung his fist fast and hard, colliding it with the boys face. The impact sent the boy stumbling backward, and his gun flew out of his hands. Michael tried to seize the gun, but the boy kneed him in the gut and stopped him.
"Michael!" I screamed as my lover collapsed to the ground. "Michael!"
He got hit. A lot. He never quit. He stood up again, always, and he kept trying to get to the gun. But he never succeeded. I was just about to run out and get the gun myself when it became too late.
The crazy boy retrieved the gun once again, pointing it directly at Michael.
"No!" I screamed, trying desperately to run forward and to stop this from happening. "Michael!"
A single shot sounded, and Michael immediately fell back to the ground. Blood poured from a wound just above his heart.
"No!" I screamed, crying hysterically. I knelt down beside him and tried to hold him. His blood got on my hands and on my arms and on my clothes, and my tears fell onto his battered body. "Oh, no," I sobbed. "Please, no!"
His breathing was coming in little gasps now, and his body was gently shaking beneath me. "Maria . . ." he whispered.
I sat up enough to look into his eyes. He was in pain. He was hurting. He was dying.
"Somebody help!" I shouted to the people around me. "Please!"
No one moved a muscle. They must have been too afraid.
"Noooooo . . ." I cried. "Michael . . ."
He reached for my left hand, and with all the strength he had left in him, he brought it up to his lips, kissing where he had placed my wedding ring, the ring that he had given me just a few short minutes ago.
"Michael, please!" I begged. He had to hold on. He had to. I needed him.
His eyes began to flutter closed, and sounds of agony and distress began to escape his lips. "Love . . . you," he choked out.
Those were the last words Michael Guerin ever said. His eyes closed and his head tipped to the side after that. His erratic breathing stopped altogether, and he was gone. He . . . he died.
A mangled cry fell from me, and I collapsed on top of him, not wanting to believe that he was really gone. Everyone was silent as they watched me grieve. Blood continued to pour out of my lover and all over me, and the gunman stared in disbelief. A few seconds later, after witnessing what he had done, he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, killing himself as well.
"Michael!" I cried. "No! Michael!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The cops and the paramedics arrived a short while later. They treated injuries and asked people about what had happened. They recommended counseling to many, myself included.
The put Michael in bag. They put him in a long, black bag, one that they use for dead people.
Dead?
A police officer came up to me and asked me if I had known the man who had been shot. The man. Thats what he was called. They couldnt even give him the respect of calling him by his name!
"Yeah," I said, "I knew him. His name was Michael." I felt the need to tell them that. "He was . . ." I glanced down at the wedding band on my finger. "We were gonna get married." I looked down at my stomach. "We were gonna have a baby together."
The police officer's eyes filled with sympathy. "I'm very sorry for your loss," he said.
I didn't know what to say. I was having a hard time grasping onto the reality that I had lost Michael in that very painful instance. So I said the only two words that I could think of. "Thank you."
Do you think you could answer a few questions for us? he asked me.
I looked around. The campus was chaotic and loud, and I was still covered in Michael's blood. "I really just wanna go home right now," I told him, though it wouldn't be much of a home without my lover.
The officer nodded in understanding and watched me go.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I stepped inside our dorm room. My dorm room. It was just my dorm room now. I found it painful to think like that.
I remembered what a controversy it had been that Michael and I were sharing a room together. We weren't supposed to. I was supposed to have a female roommate, and he was supposed to have a male roommate, just like all of the other students, but we always found a way to be together.
Always.
How will we be together now? I wondered. How will it be possible?
I walked around the room and looked at things. I looked at his CDs laying scattered on the desk. I looked at his hair gel sitting by the mirror. I looked at the Valentines Day card that he had made for me. It was still sitting in the window. I opened the closet and saw all of his clothes, right where he had left them. I saw pictures of us. We were smiling and so happy. Even in just the pictures, you could tell how in love we were.
I only cried a little as I walked around the apartment. I had cried so much already. I didn't want to cry anymore. I wanted to be strong, because Michael was always so strong.
I ridded myself of my blood-stained clothes and got into the shower to wash the blood off of my body. I tossed the clothes outside my window, not caring where they landed, and I got into one of Michael's comfortable Metallica t-shirts. It smelled like him.
I crawled into bed that night alone. I was so cold, and the bed seemed so big without Michael there. I never went to sleep. I only lay there, shivering, pulling the blankets up to my neck. I imagined that Michael wasn't really gone and that he would come striding in the door any minute with a big goofy grin on his face. I imagined that he would crawl into bed beside me and take me into his arms and lean down to whisper in my ear, It's okay. I'm here.
Tears trickled down my cheeks that night, but I didnt make a sound. I was too emotionally exhausted to vocalize anything. So I lay there crying secret, silent tears, and I felt completely lost. Without him, I always felt that way.
Things shouldn't have gotten any crazier. I had enough to deal with already, and it was taking it's toll on me, but life never ceases to amaze me, because that night, something monumental happened.
I went into labor.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I drove myself to the hospital and told them that I was having a baby two weeks early. My baby. His baby. Our baby. It was a fast delivery, and painful, too, just as I had always imagined it would be, but it was even more painful without him there. Michael . . .
I wished that he was holding my hand and talking to me, calming me down. It would have made the delivery so much easier, but the only ones in the delivery room that night were the doctors and nurses and myself. Michael was somewhere else. Probably up in heaven. He was my angel, and that's where he would be.
They placed my new baby boy in my arms, and immediately everyone asked what his name would be. I looked him over for a few seconds and stared into his little light brown eyes. Even in that infant state, I knew what he would look like, what he would be like. His father.
"Michael," I told them all. "His name is Michael."
They took him from me after that to go clean him up and take care of him. I lay in the room by myself, envisioning my child's face, comparing it to my lover's. I was the happiest I had ever been in one sense because I was now a mother, but I was also the saddest I had ever been, because my baby no longer had a father. My baby would never know what his daddy was like, how great of a man he was. I would tell him stories and show him pictures, but he would never see him, touch him, talk to him. My baby . . .
No. Our baby.
I missed my lover.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
For the next few days, I was busy and stressed. I visited our baby often, marveling at his tiny hands, his little feet, his sparkling eyes. He motivated me to keep going, even when things were rough.
Things were very rough. I was to plan Michael's funeral with the help of some of my friends. Michael didnt really have any family, except for me, so it was all laid on my shoulders. I tried to stay strong during the process, but it was so difficult, especially when some people suggested that I stand up at the funeral and say a few words about Michael since I knew him better than anyone else.
The day of the funeral came, and after going to see our baby Michael in the hospital, I went to my fiance Michael's funeral. I wore black, as did everyone else, and I mourned. But I never mourned as hard as I did when I saw him lying there for everyone to pass by.
He looked so . . . pale, so very unlike Michael. His hands were on top of his stomach, folded together in a peaceful manner. I looked at his hands for a long time, remembering how they would stroke my skin and tangle in my hair. I looked at his lips, pale and lifeless. I remembered how he used those lips to kiss me so many times, how he used them to smile and to laugh and to tell me he loved me. I looked at his closed eyes, knowing that they would remain closed forever, knowing that he would never look at me again and make me feel like the most special person on the planet.
I didnt cry, not in front of everyone. I stayed strong on the outside, but inwardly, I was dying.
I got up and stood before the gathering during the middle of the funeral. I opened my mouth to speak, and the force that had kept me strong suddenly collapsed. A strangled cry escaped me, and I fell to my knees, sobbing desperately.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Soon, a month had passed. I dropped out of school, unable to afford it anymore. Little Michael and I lived in an apartment now, and I took care of him. I had a trusted friend babysit him during the day, and I went to work at Burger Hut. I was greasy and tired and I smelled like fast food. I hated what I had been reduced to. The only part of me that I still loved was the mother part. It was the only part that mattered anymore.
It was late one night, and I had just put our child to bed. I found myself standing in the middle of my crowded little living room, just standing, never moving. I looked around the room, almost as if I were searching for something, and then I looked up to where I imagined heaven would be.
"It's been thirty one days," I said. "Its been thirty one days since you died, Michael." I swallowed a lump in my throat. "God, it's been so hard. I try to stay strong, but it . . . it's just so hard, and sometimes I feel like I can't do it. I . . . I wish you were here, because you were always so strong and so incredible, and . . . you always knew what to do. I don't. I don't know what to do, how to do it. Sometimes I cant even tell if I'm alive, Michael. A part of me died when you did, and I miss that part. I miss you. God, I miss you so much, Michael." I began to cry, feeling the familiar feeling of weakness and vulnerability. "I love you, Michael. I love you. I cant stop loving you, and I don't want to. I just wanna . . . I just wanna hold you, because you're so warm. And I just wanna hear you talk to me, because you always know what to say to make me feel better. I just wanna see your face again and look into your eyes, because I always feel so at peace when I do. I just . . ." I dropped my gaze to stare at the ground. "I just wish you were here."
Tears rolled down my cheeks and landed on the carpet. In that moment, I gave up. I quit fighting, and I was done. But then something happened.
I felt something, something in the air. It was like the room suddenly warmed up, and I felt comfortable. I felt cared about and . . . I felt loved.
I sensed something, a presence. I told myself that it was my imagination, but then I began to hear things.
I love you, Maria.
"Michael?" I asked. Was I going crazy, or was he somehow really there? "Michael, is that you?"
I believe in you.
"Michael?" Warm air encompassed me, then, and I felt like he was holding onto me, holding me tightly against him. I wanted to ask questions, but my eyes caught sight of something in the mirror, or rather someone.
He was standing beside me. Not literally in the flesh. He was glowing, like an angel, a hero. He was so luminescent and vibrant. He was holding me and smiling.
"Oh my god," I gasped, convinced that I was not imagining this. It felt too real. I turned around to face the spirit, but I couldn't see him. I waved my hands around in the air, trying to feel some kind of solid, but I didn't. "Michael!" I exclaimed excitedly. Michael, are you here? I turned back to look in the mirror again, but this time I couldn't see him.
But I could feel him. I could feel him all around me, I could feel him living inside of me. I could see him in the other room in the form of our child. He was everywhere.
A small smile spread across my face.
That night, I became stronger than ever, and I stayed stronger than ever. Though Michael wasn't with me in form, he was with me in spirit, and the knowledge that he would always be there in some way was enough to motivate me to be happy.
Michael will never leave me, not completely. We will be together. Forever.
Forever and ever.
Nothing can separate us. Not even death. Our love surpasses the unpassable and reaches the unreachable. Our love describes the undescribable and conquers the unconquerable.
Our loves defies impossible. It always has, and it always will.
Our love is unimaginable.
THE END
Story Notes:
This is a short story that deals with a sensitive topic. Im writing about this because I had a similar experience not long ago. A kid brought a gun to school and threatened to start shooting. This is my way of dealing with it: writing.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, etc.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, etc.