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When Delilah nudges me towards Lavender, I know. It’s time.

My legs are hard to move. I lie my body down against the cool forest floor. The grass is kind to my skin, stroking my cheek like a mother comforting her child. I feel everything so intensely in this moment. He said it wouldn’t hurt, but it does. In my soul. In my heart. The only places it’ll last.

I look for him, scared. Walker is standing by the house, leant against the cracking wood. It groans as a phantom breeze spikes chills up my spine. The house shudders. I wonder whose emotions bereft him – Walker’s or mine? Speaking of, he hasn’t looked away. Not once. Even when I do.

Lavender’s roots are rather soft; a bed. When I look up to see her, amber sap pools at her hollow eyes, her flowers closed and drooping.

‘Don’t wilt for me,’ I say. She laughs and cries at the same time, sap clumping and falling to land against my thigh. I cringe. And despite the moment, when we look at each other again, we share a small smile, too sad to transition into another bout of humour.

Resignation is a small and petulant thing that grows wings when she inclines her head, a silent request for my acquiescence. I nod once, sharp and quick. Best do it before I lose my nerve.

Lavender speaks the words that were cut short earlier today. And I feel my soul detach from my body. All of it, this time.

As soon as I was free of it, I knew what it was. Fear is a heavy anchor. It makes sense that that was what had held me back from moving on.

We’ve all heard it said that we enter and leave this world alone. Well, I would like to amend that.

The human experience is such that it cannot be alone. We cannot be disconnected. In a world that is so full of life, it would be impossible to come and go without impact, when even a single step on a single blade of grass changes its shape. You cannot tell me, even the most seemingly inconsequential life, does not make a difference.

Alone implies without. And I have not left this world without. I carry all my memories with me. I’ve left a few scribbles here and there, should anyone long to find me, they still can. And every time someone thinks of me or reads my words, I won’t be alone. And neither will they.

Death is not so far a journey that it can divide us from those we love. The heart doesn’t know any better but to hold on.

The ascent is almost immediate, as if my soul were making up for lost time and can’t bear to be anything but in the After. At the North Star. Away from all of this. With Delilah as my guide, she takes my hand in her own to quickly transcend. Within a second, we breach the treetops, a moment more and we’ve crested the roof of the house.

I won’t look down. I won’t.

But then…

‘Walker.’

‘Yes, Chaos?’ he calls.

‘Will I still see you in my dreams?’

‘Haven’t you had enough of me haunting you?’ I hear him say from beneath me. And damn him. Damn him for trying to take sadness from me because it only makes me want him more. And I can’t. I can’t have him.

‘Never,’ I call back. But I’m too far away now for him to hear.

He lied. He told me it wouldn’t hurt and he lied.

Untethered souls don’t cry, they fracture. I can feel myself coming apart.

Delilah notices and pulls me along, closer to the light. We’re moving so fast now. Far too high to see Lavender and Walker. Too fast. It all happened too fast.

‘Not long now, Miller. We’re almost there,’ Delilah says, edging me towards the glow of the North Star.

But I don’t want it. I don’t want any part of anything if he’s not there in it. As we get further and further away from my life, we pass the hemisphere. Clouds stop, and infinity appears. Fear seizes me. I don’t want this.

Ahead lies the North Star. Beautiful and bright. Swimming with ethereal colour that ripples around us, like wind kissing the water’s surface. Delilah looks at me with consternation.

‘I don’t know what lies beyond, Miller, but I hope wherever the North Star leads to, you find peace.’

I cannot muster a smile. Delilah won’t hold it against me. If anything, she’ll be grateful for my honesty. Real. That’s what she’s always wanted from me. That’s what she has.

But if I’m being completely honest…

I look over my shoulder. The world is so small from up here. Everything seems inconsequential, but it’s not. I want to go back. I want Lavender and Aggy. I want my perverted chickens and even that stupid bra-eating goat. But most of all, I want him. I could have done without everything else if they’d just let me have him. But without…