The woman on her deathbed hovered there for years. Her white blonde hair faded to wisps so fine, they almost weren’t there. Her eyes, vibrant sapphires, grew foggy. Her strong, able hands turned shaky, and her smile fell weaker.
Death became her constant companion, her friend in lonely, hard times. Each time she hesitated on the brink of taking Death’s hand, Death only waited patiently for her answer. Each time she chose to stay in the world of the living, Death smiled and stayed by her side. When no one else in the world was there for her, Death was.
Death was careful not to touch her. But the two spoke, often. Carissa regaled them with the stories of her life.
“We stayed in Spain long enough to celebrate Tomatina, and to run with the bulls. I cannot describe the exhilaration that consumed us. John was close enough to feel the bull’s breath... it was as if we had wings.”
She described the rush—the feeling of her heart pounding so hard she could feel her pulse under every inch of her skin. The way her lips tingled when John’s touched hers, and her body felt electrified, nearly vibrated with the burst of energy that coursed through her. The same feeling that consumed her the day of their wedding.
Death asked her of her loves. Her losses. Her near-blind eyes drowned in memories filled with grief and joy. Tears streamed down her weathered cheeks as she spoke.
“John changed my world. Everything was brighter. Like I had been living in a dark, cold world, and suddenly, because of him, everything was bright and warm. The sun felt much closer than millions of miles away. It felt like it lived in him.”
Death watched her, and felt a strange aching somewhere deep in their being as she smiled at the memory, and an even stranger pang when her smile slipped and her tears fell faster. “When he died, a piece of me died with him. I’ve been waiting to be with him again ever since, just to feel whole again. Just to feel warm.” She paused, regarded Death without fear, and asked, gently, “Have you ever loved anyone?”
“No,” they answered. The word snapped out quickly, final. But when Carissa wasn’t looking, their expression shifted, fractionally, and their vulnerability revealed itself. Their eyes softened when they rested on her, and their mouth, an unsmiling line, curved up while she busied herself smoothing the blankets resting on her. No, Death had never loved anyone. Not until her.
Their friendship continued to bloom. So did her pain. Still, she resisted Death’s promises of peace.
“I’m not ready,” she told them, and she would dissolve into tears. Death looked on, helpless, and promised they’d be there until she was.
On the days when her pain consumed her, Death entertained her with tales of the lives they touched and stole and saved.
“Cleopatra was brave,” they said. “She was fearless. She looked me in the eye and threw herself into my arms. Nothing like Hitler. He wept. Begged me not to touch him. He was… pathetic, to say the least.”
Carissa laughed, but whenever she did, she was seized by coughing fits.
“John would’ve loved to hear that,” she sighed when she could breathe again.
Death’s lips quirked up. “He did,” they said. “He was pleased.”
Death never showed jealousy of her love for John. They asked about him, often. They wanted to know the way Carissa saw him. She told them, quietly, of his eyes.
“They remind me of yours,” she said, and Death lowered their gaze. “Beautiful. Soulful… sad.”
Death said nothing. They waited for her to continue, and eventually, she did.
John claimed her heart at a very young age. He won her over with the way he could make her laugh, and the way he could soothe her cries. The balance was what she needed, she said. He was sunshine in human form.
“I had never met anyone else,” she said thoughtfully, “who made me feel the way he did.”
“Had?” Death asked.
Carissa only smiled.
On the morning she asked Death about their heart, she nearly died again. Death hovered nearby, hands half-raised as if to reach for her, but they never did. Eventually Carissa settled, her heart rate coming back to a normal level, her breathing evening out even as she stared at the ceiling as if she wasn’t really there.
To bring her back, Death talked.
“It’s safer not to love anyone.”
They explained how they came close, once. A young boy, free spirit. He was wild, balancing precariously on the edge of life’s boundaries, perpetually flirting with Death. The day he died it was a simple thing. He slid on a wet floor and cracked his skull against a cement wall in a school. It wasn’t even one of the fault of any of the dangerous stunts he loved to pull. It was purely an accident.
Death was inconsolable.
The boy had been someone they shadowed from the moment he was born. They watched his first steps, his first leap from a tree, his first time driving. They befriended him, and fondness bloomed like a bruise. It was the closest Death had ever come to loving one of the people they were bound to doom. When they had to… it nearly destroyed them. The grief was so huge it threatened to consume them-- if Death had allowed themselves to love him, it would have.
“What about the others?” Carissa asked, weakly. “Everyone else?”
“I never let myself care again,” Death murmured. “I couldn’t. Before now.”
Carissa couldn’t even find the strength to smile. “Yet you let me stay? You listen to the wishes of an old woman?”
Death remained silent for a long time. Their words, they knew, could ease her pain, or magnify it ten-fold. Finally, they said, in a voice barely above a breath.
“There are billions of peoples I don’t love whose wishes mean nothing to me. You are not one of them. If I loved you less, I’d take you now.”
She watched Death, watched their black, space-deep eyes glint with tears and shirk her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’m not ready.”
Death’s eyes returned to her, desolate, filled with grief. “You will be soon,” they answered, and their words swallowed everything. All the hope, all the fear, all the love. Carissa tore her eyes from Death and cried silently, and out of respect, Death left, for days, and let her grieve in peace.
One day, soon, after Carissa had another moment where she ached for Death’s embrace, she laid gasping in her bed.
“I love you, too,” she heaved. Death’s hands trembled above her chest—above her heart. “I know it sounds crazy; I know I’m a batty old lady, but I love you, too. You—you are my best friend.”
A fit of coughing overtook her, wracking her frail, emaciated body violently. Death’s breath shuddered out of them and they took a step closer to the bed.
Carissa spoke again, strangled by tears and agony.
“I’m not holding on because I’m afraid. I’m holding on because I want more t-time.”
“I know, Carissa, I know—”
“No, dear. I want more time with you.” Her near sightless eyes brimmed with anguish. “I’m not ready for this to be over. I’m not ready to let you go and say goodbye." Her hands searched for theirs, writhing on the bed.
Death, overcome with emotion, closed the last of the gap between them. Their hands closed over Carissa’s, clasped them tight as if they would never let go.
“It’s not goodbye, Carissa,” they swore, though their words tangled into nooses on their tongue. “It’s never going to be goodbye. It’s another chance for you to say hello to everyone you’ve ever loved.”
Tears coursed down their cheeks as Carissa smiled a faint, small, ghost of a smile; a sliver of the woman she used to be, a glimmer of the life she used to lead. “Not everyone,” she sighed.
“Carissa,” Death sobbed. “I love you.”
But Carissa didn’t answer, and in their hands, hers went limp, and on the monitor, Death claimed her heart at last.