I Need You To Recover, Because I Can’t Make It On My Own

• Dylan Gunasekera, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2011

Each step felt like a mile, his feet were worn. Beneath his shoes, were feet cut to the bone, yet still, he walked. On his shoulder was a gorgeous girl of sixteen, auburn hair glinting in the moonlight, veiling the drying blood from a wound below her singlet.
Her arm was wrapped around his shoulder. He had walked for hours now, through a trail barely deserving of the title. Odd branches dug into his exposed arms, drawing blood as they did so. Yet there was a fire inside him that would not be snuffed by branches, weight, or blood.
He sung in her ear as he trekked, lullabies of sweet taste, soft to the ear. Her face began to grow pale, the ad-hoc dressing above her breast beginning to falter. The boy noticed, stopping for a moment and bearing her entire weight as the dressing was readjusted.
Tears trickled down her face, streaming the make-up and dirt away. Her will to fight flickered in the cold of the night, drawing the heat from the boy’s body. His words numbed the pain, his grasp held her from darkness’ door. Her legs felt cold and lifeless, and her face was warm with tears.
His shoes split at the sides as he heaved her a metre more, before she stopped and whispered in his ear. Her energy was spent, and her frame began to hang limp from his shoulder.
He set her down in front of him, gently laying her down against the gravel of the path. Her face glistened with sweat, the reflections of the night covering her expressions.
As the breaths escaped her body, he rummaged through a backpack for ventolin. He held her hand as she faded, gazing up at him. He returned it, and felt her hand leave his, and rest against his torso.
Grasping at his shirt, she ripped the weakened fabric from his skin. He recovered his hand from the backpack holding nothing. She drew at his fire like a damp cloth, as his face too, darkened to the night.
Clutching her hand with both his, he pleaded to God, gazing up at what he could see of the moonlight. As he closed his eyes, her grasp tightened, and the backpack was again opened.
She swept her hand madly inside; the boy looked into her eyes once more and joined her, his fire strengthened by the resolve beneath her skin.
The moon slipped beneath the darkness, as their hands clasped each others.