So This Is the End

by Alexandra Franzen

  I kiss him, swallowing up the panicked end of his sentence. I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. I pull him into me, grasping the back of his neck, exulting in the sensation of his lips on mine, but also, quite honestly, buying myself a few moments of time. Because what am I supposed to say to him? I mean, really?

  “I think I love you too, Ren. Oh and by the way, I hope it’s not a deal breaker, but … I’ll be dead in a few hours, and you’ll need to contact the hospital so they can come to collect my corpse . . .”

  Jesus. No. I couldn’t do that to him.

  That’s a cruel, horrific thing for one human being to do another.

  But what’s the alternative?

  My mind devises a cruel chart of pros and cons, weighing the possible joy, risk, and pain of every possible choice.

  Should I push him away? Maybe I should. Maybe that’s the ethical thing to do. I could make up some excuse for leaving abruptly (“Oh man, I totally forgot that I’ve got a dentist appointment like right now … gotta go, byeeee . . .”) and walk out the door. Vanish forever. Fade into the city, never to be found.

  He’ll wonder what happened, of course, but he’ll invent some type of rationalization and he’ll make peace with it and move on. Log back online. Swipe right. Find someone new. I’ll become a brief and bizarre blip in the story of his life. Soon, he’ll forget about me.

  Except I don’t want him to forget about me. It’s disgustingly selfish, but I don’t.

  I want his love, and I want him to feel things intensely, and I want him to miss me when I’m gone. It’s sick. But that’s what I want. And I hate myself for wanting it.

  Creating a dating profile with Tasha was truly the stupidest idea. God, what was I thinking? Actually, I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking exclusively about myself—my hunger, my loneliness, my fantasy of giving true love one last chance—but I failed to consider the fact that love involves two people’s hearts, not just one.

  And now Ren is mixed up in this mess that I created. He’s looking at me with those glistening honey eyes and just … waiting. He’s not kissing me anymore, just looking at me, piercing right into me, and every cell in his body seems to plead for an answer.

  The silence is prickling with icy electricity. The silence of a room where one person says “I love you,” and there’s no response—that is the coldest type of silence.

  I know I have to say something.

  Because when someone says they love you, you can’t say nothing and stare at them blankly unless you’re some kind of monster.

  A beat. Then another. After thirty, maybe forty seconds of hesitant silence, I feel the words coming out, pressure building inside my belly and chest, unstoppably intense.

  I tell him the truth.

  “Ren, I … I feel it, too.”

  His eyes shine with hope—they’re the eyes of boy who has just been promised a puppy and a new Nintendo and a bicycle for Christmas, and it’s absolutely precious and heartbreaking and terrible.

  “I think I love you too. Even though we just met, even though it makes no sense. And … I’m scared too.”

  And every word is true.

  The tension in his face melts away.

  We curl into interlocking C-shapes, spooning closely, his body wrapped behind mine, letting these new revelations settle into our bones.

  So this is how it happens.

  The cruel joke. The unthinkable twist.

  I have finally found the love of my life … on the last day of my life.

  Hour Thirteen

  “So now what?” Ren asks softly, his lips nuzzling my ear.

  Just three words, but it’s the biggest question I can imagine.

  A thousand possible answers swirl in my mind.

  He strokes my hair, my shoulder, the curve of my waist, tracing me like a painter with a brush, memorizing my shape.

  I know I have to tell him. I just don’t know how to find the right words.

  No, that’s a lie. I know what to say. I’m just terrified that this exquisite moment will come to a shattering, devastating halt—a piano dropped from an eighty-story skyscraper onto the concrete—if I reveal the truth about who I am and how much time I have left.

  I don’t want to be evicted from his arms.

  I can’t stand the thought of seeing his eyes flash with betrayal, like I’ve just cradled his heart in my hands before carelessly tossing it into a blender. Set to pulse and pulverize. Whirrrr.

  But the weight of the unspoken words threatens to crush me. I am not going to spend my final hours of life lying to myself or to the man I’m beginning to love. He deserves to know the truth. Not just the pretty parts. All of it.

  So I tell him.

  The words pour out of me like steam escaping a kettle. Hot, fast, unrelenting.

  “There’s something important I need to tell you . . .”

  I start from the beginning. The heart condition. The surgery that never really began. Complications with the anesthesia. My death. Temporary Cellular Resuscitation. Waking up semi-paralyzed in the eggshell-colored hospital room with the clock insistently ticking on the wall. Orange juice that tasted like licorice. Tossing my phone in the garbage. Finding Tasha. Her scheme to set me up on a date and now … this. Him. Us. Here.

  “So that’s everything,” I finish.

  Silence.

  His pupils are wide and black, just a faint ring of gold at the perimeter. I’m panicking inside, heart pounding like a terrorized bird in a cage. He peels himself away from my body, and I nearly cry out in pain.

  It’s over. I knew it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I can’t blame him. I mean, I just dropped the bombshell to end all bombshells. Hi, nice to meet you, I’m in love with you, let’s live happily ever after, JK, I’m dead!

  He pulls himself into a seat on the bed, facing away from me, hunched over as if he’s about to be sick. I pull the sheets up to cover myself, feeling ashamed and monstrous.

  Finally, he speaks.

  His voice is remarkably calm. His eyes are glistening with tears and his face is stricken, and I can tell he is using every iota of his willpower to remain steady and controlled.

  “How much time do we have?” he asks.

  “I totally understand if you want me to leave . . .” I mumble rapidly, twisting the sheets in agitation. “I know this is . . .”

  “Don’t,” he says sharply. I stop babbling.

  “How much time?” he repeats.

  The sky is dark. I can see a slice of moonlight through his bedroom window. I guess-timate my remaining time in this body.

  “About ten hours,” I say bluntly.

  He nods to himself. His chest is eerily still, as if he hasn’t taken a breath in several minutes.

  “Ten,” he repeats. “Stay here. Please don’t leave.”

  I watch him walk out of the bedroom, too slowly, as if he’s sleepwalking. He makes a right at the end of the hallway and disappears. Then I hear his scream, deep and guttural, like a mourning animal. I hear ten staggeringly loud crunching sounds, fist meeting wall, wood snapping, books falling from the shelves onto the floor. Each punch more forceful than the last. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Another howl of agony. Eight. Nine. Ten. And then silence. Silence, except for the faint sound of paint and plaster shivering away from the wall.

  I am awestruck, frightened, and mortified. Shame burns inside of me. Selfish, selfish, selfish. I did this to him. It would be better if we’d never met. What was I thinking?

  I pull the covers up to my face, and I’m shaking, sobbing, just a nonsensical mess of snot and self-disgust.

  I hear the sound of running water. Cupboards opening and closing. The snipping of scissors. Footsteps in the hall.

  He returns to the bedroom with his right hand wrapped in a black cloth. His face is streaked with tears. He ret
urns to his position on the bed, right by my side, as if nothing has happened. His knuckles are bleeding, seeping around the edges of the bandage.

  I reach out to touch his back, stroking softly, trying to comfort him. He doesn’t flinch.

  He seems different than before he left the bedroom. Steady. Present. Calmer. Like he just purged his fury through his knuckles, pounding it through the wall with each blow.

  “I’m ready now,” he says quietly.

  “For what?” I ask nervously, even more quietly.

  “I’m ready for the next ten hours. I’m ready to give you all of myself, every part of me, if you’ll have me,” he says. “It’s only ten hours. I hate that it’s only ten hours. But it’s better than nothing at all.”

  I press my lips to his chest, nodding.

  “So what’s your dream, Nora? How can I,” his voice cracks, tears rimming his eyes. “How can I make this, this … the best ten hours of your life?”

  I have a few ideas.

  I press myself closer, skin on skin, warmth against warmth, wriggling up towards the place where his neck curves into his ear. I whisper exactly what I want. I hold nothing back. I pour it out. Everything I want to taste, feel, and experience with Ren. Everything I want to give to him. Everything I can offer. My words are raw and urgent. There’s no shield protecting my ego. No hiding. No censorship. Feeling his heart accelerate as I speak, I add . . .

  “. . . But I don’t want to pressure you. Only if you want to.”

  His mouth finds mine. His hands dig into the soft flesh of my hips, pulling me so close that I gasp.

  He absolutely wants to.

  Hour Fourteen

  Oh . . .

  Hour Fifteen

  . . . My . . .

  Hour Sixteen

  God.

  Hour Seventeen

  Delirium.

  It’s the only accurate description for my current state of being.

  My lips are raw from his urgent, unrelenting kisses. Every square inch of skin is tingling, enlivened by his touch. My temples are pounding, blood thundering in my ears. My lungs heave like an Olympic swimmer emerging from a record-breaking two-hundred-meter sprint. I’m drunk on the sensation of skin meeting skin. High on the intensity of his gaze. Every part of me, rubbed slightly raw from the hint of stubble on his jaw. Utterly spent, devastated, wrecked, yet greedy for more.

  Climax after climax has reduced me to a shuddering mess. It’s sad, really, but I never knew sex could be … like this. I’ve always enjoyed a pretty decent sex life—I come, he comes, goodnight kiss, roll over, pass out, everybody’s happy—but this is a different echelon of sensation.

  Somewhere towards the end of the third hour of delirium, our bodies spiral downwards into a natural conclusion. We sink into a tangle of limbs, facing one another, my head resting on his chest, fingers clasped, interlocking like puzzle pieces, completely entwined like we were born for one another. I feel empty yet full, exhausted yet vividly awake.

  I steal a glance at his face. His eyes are closed, and the faintest smile passes across his lips. He looks peaceful. Satisfied. I wonder if, in this post-orgasmic haze, he has temporarily forgotten the grim reality of our situation. Or if he’s just fighting back those thoughts, trying to be present in this moment with me.

  My mind whirls through one thousand possible moments just like this one, but different. All the possible futures that could have—and should have—been ours.

  Waking up together on a humid Sunday morning, lazy eyes drifting across one another’s naked bodies, knowing we have no plans today, which of course, is always the best plan.

  Falling asleep together after a long, dark, frigid winter night, the heat of his body pulsating on my back, locked into a horizontal embrace, protected and complete.

  Slinking out of a spontaneous summer nap, late afternoon light winking through the curtains. Me, rising just a few minutes before him, preparing a tray of iced coffee, strawberries, toast with smashed avocado on top, tiptoeing back into the bedroom, teasing him awake with playful kisses, watching a grin spread across his face as he realizes what he’s about to receive . . .

  A thousand permutations of the joy, the connectedness, the love that we could have. Would have had. If only … I wasn’t . . .

  A wretched, agonized sob leaves my throat, completely outside of my control. Delirium becoming despair.

  I curl into a tight, miserable fetal position, peeling my body away from his warmth, shuddering, convulsing with grief. I feel like an animal, completely out of control, grieving the life we’ll never share, the moments we’ll never experience, the kisses, the birthdays, the anniversaries, the decades of old age, walking hand in hand together. I grieve for us, for him, for me. For everything I’ll never do, taste, experience, become . . .

  I’ve cried a lot in the past eighteen hours or so. But this is the first time that I’ve really, truly grieved my own death. I cry until there is nothing left.

  He doesn’t try to stop me. He lets me thrash and sob and wring everything out. I sense him behind me, feel him shift on the bed, coming into a seated position on top of the sex-stained tornado of pillows and sheets. Just watching. Witnessing. Waiting, patiently, for me to be complete.

  When I’m finished, I feel empty, hollow, but it feels good. Like I’ve just unloaded a lifetime of pent-up frustration and suffering. I feel light and unburdened. I’m just … here. Alive. Sort of. For the time being. We all have our ways of coping with the brutal reality of life and whatever comes after life, I guess. He needs to punch a series of holes into the wall and apparently, I need to sob hysterically every couple of hours. So it goes.

  He moves off the bed onto the floor, coming into a kneeling position, his eyes level with mine, looking so goddamn handsome, and I can’t help it … I smile. The last few remaining tears seep downward, and I dry my face using the corner of one of his pillow cases.

  I rest my cheek on the bed. For a few moments, a few breaths, we both hold our positions in silence. Me, curled at the edge of the bed. Him, kneeling before me, quietly, worshipfully. Finally, I say the only words that make any sense:

  “Ren, I love you.”

  He echoes the words back to me, instantly and without hesitation, replacing his name with my own.

  This is a unique type of bliss I’ve never experienced before—the bliss of knowing that our feelings are completely aligned.

  Suddenly, I feel a twinge of anxiety and compulsively glance around the room for a clock, a watch, a phone, something. I’m not panicking, but I just want to know . . .

  Ren is one step ahead of me.

  “Seven hours,” he says, softly. “A little over seven hours remaining.”

  I nod, taking it in. Seven. OK. More time than I thought, actually. This is good news. I can work with this.

  I exhale fiercely and make my choice:

  No more tears. No more grief. I just want to live.

  I want to savor every minute with this man for as long as I can.

  We don’t get the luxury of seven decades together like some couples do. We don’t get holidays and family vacations and favorite movies and “our song” and make-up sex after a silly fight. I’ll never meet his parents. He’ll never watch me grow soft, creased, and wrinkled. I’ll never learn what kind of father he might be. He’ll never tell me how his love for me has only grown deeper and stronger than he ever thought possible on our fortieth anniversary. We’ll never get to spoil our grandkids with an unreasonable number of birthday presents. Never. We don’t get the privilege of a lifetime together. But we have seven hours. And I’ll be damned if we don’t use every single minute to the fullest.

  I lean over the edge of the bed and kiss him fiercely. He reaches up to cradle the back of my neck with one hand, grasping my hair. I feel warm again, like there’s a sun inside my chest.

  “Ren … I have a re
ally important question.”

  He leans back on his heels.

  “Yes?”

  He braces himself for my question, eyes wide, no doubt worrying that I’m about to reveal some other horrific piece of news, even worse than the last time.

  “I am starving. Do you have any food?”

  Relief floods his face. He laughs. Clambering back onto the bed, he showers my bare shoulders with small kisses. And then slaps my ass fiercely. Guess I deserve that.

  “I happen to be an incredible cook. I’m so glad I get a chance to show off for you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I giggle, wrapping myself around him, luxuriating in the sensation of skin on skin once again. “What’s your specialty?”

  “Pancakes,” he replies matter-of-factly.

  There is something about the seriousness of his tone—contrasted with the silliness of the word “pancakes”—that tilts me into a fit of giggles. He responds with a smile that lights up the room. It’s that special kind of smile that a man gets when he knows he’s done something to please his woman, and he’s proud and enchanted and wants nothing more except to do it again.

  “Pancakes, huh?” I say, amidst lingering hiccup-like giggles. “Show me what you got, hotshot.”

  He’s already bounding towards the kitchen. No time to waste.

  Hour Eighteen

  With staggering speed, he assembles all of the essentials.

  Flour. Eggs. Milk. Butter. Salt. A pint of fresh blueberries. Real maple syrup—the kind that comes from a tree, not an artificial goo factory.

  I have no idea what time it is outside, but in here, in our sacred world, it feels like Sunday morning.