Goodbye

“Goodbye,” That is the final word from me before I stared intensely at this knife, tightly gripped on my left hand.

    That was when I heartlessly buried the knife into my heart. The pain. The fear. The fear of dying. The fear of losing. Losing someone who was my other half- my soulmate.

    Flashback began. 7^th July 2001, the day that I met him for the first time. As usual, I sat leisurely under a tree and went through my journal and updated it. Currently, I updated my journal about my gifted talent from God. I always knew, there must have been a reason why I was always a solitary girl. Nobody was even bothered to say ‘Hi’ to me. If I started with a friendly greeting and a huge grin, they would give me those glaring eyes, staring at me from up and down and then left me all alone. From my observation, they loved making fun of what I wore, mainly because they could afford branded clothes, while I only managed to put on clothes that I sew by myself and I thought they were decent.

     They thought I was psyche. And they considered it as a joke and laughing stock. Little did they know that they were telling the truth. Yes, I was psyche. I was born to be alone, but possess immense strength to endure any problem, practically - alone. I could not rely on anyone but myself.

    The thing was, what was my gifted talent? Let’s play guessing game.

     A fortune teller? No.

     Invisible? No.

     Future vision? Wrong. 

     Sense wandering spirits? Almost there.

     Drop it. My gift was, being able to see wandering, non-rest-in-peace souls. For instance, if there was someone who was murdered and the corpse was not buried properly, the unfortunate soul would seek me for help. The next step would be me contacted the soul’s family or even police to look for the corpse and finally had a proper funeral so that the soul would be able to rest in peace. It was quite terrifying at first, to run into souls with hideous, bloody looking, but finally somehow I got used to it. I should appreciate this special gift. Who wouldn’t?

     “Bella, is it you?”

     “Yes, I am,” I replied swiftly.

     “Meet me, Edward,” uttered the good looking guy. He had this mesmerizing hazel eyes and porcelain skin to die for. He was the type of guy that every girl wanted to be with and every guy loathed to death. He could simply kill any girls with his dazzling smile, I bet.

     “Hello, Edward. What brings you here?” I tried to use better words to express my thought, but those words seemed impolite to me. What I really meant was, why would he, the popular guy, talk to psyche girl like me?

     “I’m new here. So, I need somebody to assist me by guiding me in this enormous, prestigious place,” He flashed that killer smile. I gulped.

    “Did you mean, the enormous, prestigious place is this school? Wow. Do you need a tour for this school? I’m sorry but you’ve came to meet the wrong person. You should meet Jenny, she’s really good when it comes to touring this school to newbie, like you,” I bit my lower lip.

     “No, I want you to be my guide. You,” He pointed his long, bony finger to me.

     “Are you really sure? Are you drunk or something? Just so you know, alcohol is strictly prohibited in school,” I attempted to crack a joke to loosen up the atmosphere a bit. My joke always failed to impress anyone except – him.

     He laughed his head off like no one’s watching. He seemed so casual and free, as if he did not care about others’ first impression toward him. His breathless laugh was the best sound that I ever heard.

     “My heart tells me it’s you. My heart never lies to me, at least it does not know how to,” I could sense he was smiling through his words.

      My heart skipped a beat.

      I was falling slowly and deeply head-over-heels for this guy - who was a stranger to begin with. I realized that he might be like one of those typical guys with sugary words, but deep inside I knew for one thing that he was different. Is this love?

     It was not just tour. I was more than that. For the first time in my life, I had someone to rely on. He spilled almost everything about him. His top secret, fears, family, dreams and the list may went on and on. He was always ready to listen to my problems and manage to make me laugh out loud when I was about to burst into tears. He completed me.

     Somehow, there was something odd and uncanny about him. His skin was too pale, sometimes. His two eyes looked tired and lifeless. He frequently seemed lost in thoughts, vague thoughts I assumed. I ignored his peculiarity because I was willing to accept his flaws to be with him. But still, I could not help but conceal my biggest secret- my one and only gift. I was afraid of losing him. There was a possibility that he would ditch me once I blurted the whole gifted thing out. He must have been devastated and assumed that I was a freak because I was actually talking to an invisible, insignificant – soul.

      “Bells, there’s something wrong with your brain, I must say. It’s no longer functioning well. Your brain’s socket is dislocated,” Jessi chuckled.

     “You’ve been talking to yourself for hours. Aren’t you getting bored of yourself? Oh God, I’m sick by just getting you into my sight. Your fashion sense is lame. Is that your grandma’s dress?” Sica accompanied her hollow laugh with an eyeball rolling. I suppressed a sigh. It hurts.

     “What’s wrong with you two? I’ve been chatting with Edward. Can’t you see?” I uttered those words confidently, emphasized the word 'Edward', trying hard not to sound like I was affected by their sudden, exasperating words.

     “Wake up, girl. There’s nobody there. It’s just you. You and – you,” Jessi pointed her finger towards me while maintaining her stern eye contact with me.

     “Are you trying to fool me with your absurd lie? Because I’m not buying it. Edward is here, with me,” I admonished her recent words. I was persistent to uphold my opinion. Ironically, Edward was not even trying to say anything. He just stood there quietly, staring at emptiness, drowning into his vague thoughts while folding his arms.

     “I don’t have time for stupid lie. What’s the point?” Jessi replied. At that moment, I knew she was not deceiving me. I could see that from her eyes. Eyes don’t lie. She grunted and stormed out with Sica, leaving me alone with Edward.

     I sighed deeply. I blinked and felt tears in my eyes. This could not be happening. This should not be happening. I stared fondly at Edward and when he met my gaze, I burst into tears. My one and only gift fell like a first domino, which caused all of the others toppled, creating havoc. Edward was clearly a soul. He was nothing but a – soul. Nobody could see him but me. All of this time, I was technically hanging out with a soul.

     I glared at him impatiently, demanding an explanation.

      “I’m terribly sorry, Bella. For the first time we met, I knew we were meant to be. I still remember the beautiful scene that I ever seen. It was you. But, it was too late. I am no longer a human. You have no idea how I wish that I am a human at this moment. I’ve wanted to rectify this situation. Alas, I am useless. I don’t have the heart to tell you to seek my dead body because I don’t want to see you getting hurt. I died in a dreadful way. It was horrible. I wish I could wipe your tears,” He confessed. An involuntary gasp of astonishment escaped from my mouth.

      We were meant to be together. We were fated to meet. Death – was the only thing that could separate us. And it did. For now.

      “It’s time, Bella. It’s time for me to go,” He muttered those words slowly.

      “No. Please, don’t go,” I cried frantically.

      “Goodbye, Bella. Somebody has found my dead body. Now, I should rest in peace. Goodbye, love,” That was when he disappeared out of my sight.

     Everything had happened too fast. I could not bear the fear of losing him. I could not bear to be idle. He must have been waiting for me in heaven. Yes, heaven.

     In my zeal to cut myself off, I suddenly thought about my gifted talent. Screw the gift. Screw the talent. I only needed him in my life. This immense pressure was too hard for me to withstand it. I could not stand living in this cruel world without him. They assumed. They judged. They punished. They isolated. No empathy. And they called themselves as human. Even wandering soul possesses better humanity compared to actual human.

     “Goodbye,” One last world before I stabbed myself heartlessly.

p/s: Bella and Edward. Obviously, Twilight's main characters.This short story is inspired by the novel SUMPAHAN FASHA by KRU. Yeah. The gifted, talent, sixth sense part. If I'm blessed with this gift, I would give a definite NO. Because apparently, I'm scared. I salute the main character, Fasha in the novel, for being fearless to accept this gift and carry out her duty, very well. In my short story, the main character turned out to commit suicide for the sake of her love. And I don't like her idea, though. I just happen to leave this story like this, simply because I'm secretly emotional, and I loathe people who are judgmental which results in innocent people making stupid mistake, like, committing suicide.