I Would Give You A Concrete Bouquet

If I could, I would give you the impossible. Everything in the world. Everything that exists and everything that doesn't. Everything my head can come up with.

I would give you a concrete bouquet.

I would give you a licorice house, that you could eat from the inside out.

I would give you a glass plane so you could see the entire world.

I would give you a time machine, so you could travel back to whenever you wanted. So you could stop this illness before it started. So we could still be happy.

But I can't give you the impossible. That must be why I'm standing here, watching your chest rise and fall. Slow and steady. Even and true. How much longer will it rise and fall like that?

Your eyes open, your smile is soft and full of affection that I find I can't express right now. It hurts. That expression, that affection, it hurts. In that space between my lungs and my heart, in the bottom of my stomach, in the web of skin between my forefinger and thumb. I'm not really sure why that part hurts, but it does. It aches, along with the rest of me. It's too much.

I lean closer to you. "Hey."

You draw in a long breath and close your eyes briefly. I'm not sure if you're saving the memory of my voice or just reveling in human contact after all the doctors and nurses, but I mourn the brief loss of your eyes. "Hi."

I carefully sit in the chair next to the bed, delicately, like it might break. "How are you feeling?" It's a lame question, I know, but I can't help but ask. You don't look like I remember you. Your skin is almost a grey color, like parchment that's been too long in the sun. Transparent. 

Your eyes are too wide, like it's effort to keep them open. Your lips are pale, they blend in. Not pink. Not like they should be. And they're too closed, tightly pressed together, like you're trying to keep in the pain.

"I feel like I'm stuck in bed and dying." Your voice is soft, but it has lost none of its sarcastic edge. "But other than that, feeling fine."

When I finally manage to smile at the joke, it feels like my face will split in two. It's too hard to smile, even though I should, even though you need me to smile. It's what's keeping you sane, I know, the fact that we can still make light of death. If I stop, if I cry, if I show you that the idea of you leaving me fills me with a terror I can't even describe, then you will fall apart. All that carefully preserved calm, all that beautiful humor and bravery, gone. I won't do that to you.

"Does it—" I start, but stop. I won't ask you that. It's not fair to remind you.

"Hurt?" you finish for me. "Does it hurt?"

I nod.

Your eyes are suddenly distant, though they are still on me. "Yes, it hurts." You summon up another smile, and I can tell that even that effort will soon be too much. "But most of the time I'm on enough painkillers to tranquilize an elephant, so it's not that bad."

I nod again. I don't know what I can say to that, or what I'm supposed to say.

You speak again. This is the most I've heard you talk in days. "I don't want to go."

Your expression is so calm, the sentiment so simple, and I can see a hint of the fear that I so dreaded seeing.

"I don't want you to go." It's perhaps the most honest thing I've said in my entire life.

"You know that I love you, right?"

That's a stupid question. Of course I know that you love me, but for some reason, now, that simple statement is infinitely more beautiful to me than it would have been before. Before today, before this second, before this illness.

I find myself nodding. "Of course I do. I love you, too."

I haven't touched you yet. Not since the last time I was here. It seems strange, that I should only just realize that, but there it is. I think that I'm afraid of the possibility that if I touch you now you won't be real. You'll just melt into the bed, or my fingers will pass right through you, or you'll dissipate into the air like water vapor.

I've never been accused of being rational.

"I thought so," you reply. "But sometimes I like to be sure." You look away from me. "Right now I'd like to be sure."

"It won't ever change, you know. It's a sure thing."

You shake your head. "No, it's not. You know there are only two sure things in this world."

I almost smile at that. "Death and taxes."

The sound of your breathing fills the room. I quiet my own to hear yours better.

We say nothing for several minutes, just sit. I still haven't touched you.

I feel your eyes on me again, and suddenly I can't stand to be in this room any longer. I can't be here, stewing in the knowledge that I can't keep you.

"I'd better let you get some sleep." I say quietly.

"Before you go," you blurt out, as I turn to leave. "I'd like it if you kissed me. Just once. So I know what it's like."

I don't know why you asked that. We're friends, strictly, we don't kiss, we're not supposed to. But I don't think it matters right now, and I lean down anyway and press my lips softly to yours. It's brief, hardly more than a second, but you're smiling as I pull back.

I'm at the door when I turn around again. I can't help it. I have to tell you. "You know, if I could, I would give you the impossible."

You laugh, and I smile at the sound. Then, you say, "I know."