Page 257 of Breathe Like Hell

Not along the flat path that I could walk to reach the cliff, but through the underbrush, weaving between tree trunks and ducking under branches until its faint glow came into sight. I went over to it and sat right at the base, leaning against the trunk while my eyes slid shut. I’d been coming here most days for the past month, since I’d really noticed it for the first time.

This was the first place Micah touched the Earth.

Right here, at this tree.

I knew it, because it glowed. There was a slight ultraneon emanating from the whole thing, gleaming stronger between the cracks in the bark.

When I asked Mason to come with me to the tree, he couldn’t see it glowing at all. He’d argued with me the first time, accused me of lying. I yelled right back at him, accusing him of other terrible things. Because I wasn’t lying.

He tried to fuck me on the ground because I thought it would fix things, but it hurt and I screamed at him to get off, screamed at him about Micah, which made him spiral even more. Until the ocean exploded with storms and all I could do was cling to the edge of my own slipping sanity.

I’d spent a lot of hours wondering why the tree only seemed to shed light for me. I used to think it was because Micah had been the one to sacrifice his life for mine, the angel to breathe neon into my lungs and transform me into what I’d become now—but when I thought more about it, I remembered how I’d seen this glow before. When I was still human, with Micah flying me over the trees, I noticed a little glimmer somewhere below us. Back then, I didn’t give it much of a thought.

Now, I thought about it all the time.

Maybe I was simply hallucinating it.

Maybe it was real.

I didn’t know.

Quiet tears trickled down my cheeks, contrasting with all the angry irrational shouts that’d come out of my mouth earlier, all the hatred and agony and panic and grief that always seemed to overtake my brain and turn me into a monster.

There is a graveyard inside of me, and this is where I live. I never leave.

In it, there are two gravestones.

Micah and Ivy.

I tipped my skull back against the bark of the tree, a light breeze blowing the baby hairs around my face. My fingers brushed over pine needles on the ground, pressing into the dirt.

Sometimes I thought about those few days when I’d known I was pregnant. I’d been more scared and unsure than ever. I’d felt trapped in my own body, paralyzed with fear because I had to make a big decision, one way or the other. But in the end, the decision was taken away from me, and it didn’t matter what I wanted.

I don’t know what I would’ve chosen.

I didn’t want the baby.

But maybe with him…

Pine branches swayed above me in a net of life. The sun poked through the clouds sometimes, but it didn’t reach me here in the heart of the forest. Not fully.

Even when I stood out from any cover, the sun couldn’t quite touch me anymore.

I breathed deep, inhaling cedar and moss and damp earth, feeling mist in my lungs. To anyone else, the scent would’ve been rich and fulfilling, but to me, it was flat and dull.

Because I knew how much deeper a scent like this could be.

I knew that shadows could smell like love, that rain-damp rocks could breathe, that pine trees could hug me and tuck me into bed.

Not anymore.

I turned my head as I cried, my hand extending upwards to brush along one of the branches extending from the tree, glimmering softly, outlined with the steady sheen of ultraneon. There was a small bit of sap dripping down the trunk near my head, like the tree was crying, too. I took my journal out of my bag and extended my legs, kicking aside pine cones with the heels of my boots so I could plant my feet, anger tying a knot in my chest.

My fingers traced over the lace on my journal, trembling slightly, then I opened it and uncapped my blue pen. This was my life now. There was no change coming up in the future. I’d graduated college, was no longer pregnant, and had no plans to try getting a new job.

I gripped the pen tightly, scribbling a lot of angry words onto the paper, giving myself something to focus on other than sobbing again.

I contribute nothing to the world.