Don’t go, I thought. There’s so much you’re going to miss.
I see your eyes, and although they don’t move from their skyward haunt, I imagine that you are there—just waiting to breathe. Waiting for me to start your heart again because it must have been a whim that it stopped in the first place. It was a game that you were playing to get me to come play with you in the middle of the night like you so often wanted.
I used to stay up all night and wander the house. Creep from my room and check the fridge just in case something new and appealing hit my nose. I never knew if my shuffling in the kitchen woke you up or if you waited for me, but as I rolled my feet like a cereal ninja, I would hear your soft laugh. So I would deviate and kiss your peach fuzz forehead. Cover you up if you were cold, pull them down if you were hot. You loved when I would flip your pillow so you could feel the cool side. Always before I left, I would kneel on the floor and put my head on your chest. Like we practiced so many times, your arms would wrap around my head and give me a hug that I knew took all your concentration.
I always felt safe hearing your heartbeat when we hugged, something I relied on since you were a baby slung haphazardly over my shoulder. You loved that when everyone treated you so carefully as if you would break, that I held you like a sack of potatoes. You learned that way to hang on to Sissy. To wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist and hang on with everything you had and laugh about it.
That’s all I wanted.
For you to hang on while I fixed everything. To breathe and look at me and tell me that it’s alright that I didn’t wake up last night. To let me hear your heartbeat one more time while I hugged you.
To ask you not to go, because there’s so much that I am going to miss.
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