Free Between the Stars and Sky by David James Page A

doesn’t even hesitate. “It wouldn’t be life.”
    “It would be safe.”
    “It would be, but that’s not what life is about, Jackson. At least not the kind of life I want.”
    “What kind of life do you want?” I ask her. We’ve discussed it, but I still don’t know what kind of life I want. Sometimes I wonder if my life would be better if I was dealt safer cards, if people didn’t just leave. If there was some kind of warning.
    Less hearts would be broken.
    This time, for three seconds, her lips pause over words, waiting. “I’ll show you.”
    And then we are walking, running, flying down the beach against the sand. Against the dark twilight of the day long gone. Against the wind.
    I can hardly breathe.
    My face is freezing, but my hand is warm.
    Up the path to my house, toward the car.
    In.
    Gone.
    Windows down.
    Faster and faster and faster.
    And faster .
    I open my mouth-
    She says, “Don’t, Jackson. Just listen to the night. Look at the stars. Make a wish on a passing car.”
    It takes me a moment, but I relax. My hand in hers, tonight feels like the first of many. Of times gone by, times that always will be.
    Times that moved so fast they never were.
    And still she whispers, “I’ll show you.”
     
    *   *   *
     
    Cold air swims around me as though I am in the lake, naked. But we are far away from Huntington now. Minutes slipped to hours, until it was long after midnight and my breathing slowed to something like sleep.
    Sarah brushes a finger down my arm, and I can feel her push down on the gas slightly. “I’ll show you, Jackson. I’ll show you what kind of life I want.”
    I am so tired, so drained. But she is alive. And behind the wheel she seems fearless, pushing harder and harder on the gas so we begin to fly down the highway like devils seeking the damned.
    “In a rush?” I ask, my voice higher than I want.
    She smiles, but her eyes look vacant as they stay on the road in front of us. “Just trying to feel the wind.”
    It strikes me how odd this is, how dangerous. How a girl like Sarah would drive fast just to feel the wind, as though she has never felt it before. Her eyes wide, so wide they want everything and see nothing. So desperately she feels the wind rushing through her hair and against her skin, so willingly, like she has never felt anything like this before.
    Has she?
    Has she never felt alive? Truly alive, even though she seems like she lives and breathes life daily?
    “Sarah-”
    “We’re here,” she tells me, pulling over to the side of the road near the place where the train runs through the mountains. “Out.”
    I take her hand, and she pulls me toward-
    something.
    She is warm. So warm, she is burning. Or maybe I am cold like the night, and she is simply holding on to what day is left in the sky beyond the mountains.
    She says, “Close your eyes. Don’t argue.”
    I don’t.
    We stop.
    Wait.
    Minutes.
    Hours.
    Until-
    I hear screaming in the distance. A noise too soft it is almost like the mountains are breathing around us. I want to open my eyes, but I don’t.
    “Sarah?”
    Louder.
    Louder .
    She says, “Open!”
    The train is screaming, speeding toward us like a bullet. A gun, and maybe they are the same thing now. Two things that could destroy me, us. A single beam of light blinds me, and I cannot see anything beyond it. This white light will end me, us. And I cannot move I cannot move I cannot feel anything but my heart in my throat beating beating faster louder beating choking the air from me beating beating-
    stopping .
    “Sarah?” I gasp.
    I can’t-
    “Jackson?”
    I nod. That’s it. That’s all I have now.
    She is next to me, entwined. I’m not sure where she ends and I begin, or - maybe I have ended. Maybe I’m dead. Because I still can’t breathe without my heart filling my lungs with dread and my throat with horror.
    She turns to me, her smile as wide as the sky. “Do you feel alive? Did you feel that? That’s what kind of life I want.