Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (43 page)

Jimmy turned to
look at Sapphire.  Her body was pulsating with energy.  She looked purified. 
Clean.  She turned to face Jimmy.

"Thank
you," she said.

Jimmy nodded.  He
reached out to her and her hands clasped his.  The energy crackled between them
as they touched and the light shot into the sky, bathing the darkening sky and
the surrounding forest and woods with daylight.  Jimmy figured that people from
miles around must have been able to see the glow.  They merged together in
something that compared to a kiss, but went beyond anything a mortal kiss could
ever convey.  Suddenly everything that was Sapphire was mixed with everything
that Jimmy was.  He felt the love from her, and she from him.  It was beyond
making love.  It was beyond kissing and holding hands.  It was a merging of
their very essence, the very thing that made up life, the most primal and
primitive thing that makes up each and every human being, but in raw form and now
merged together.

"You need to
go," Jimmy said.  "You can go into the light now, Sapphire.  There's
no need for you to stay here anymore."

"Except for
you," Sapphire said.  "You can feel it, can't you?  You can feel
what's between us?"

"Yes,"
Jimmy said, "but it's time to start obeying the laws of the universe
again.  We can't keep this up.  Not even God would let us continue the way we
are.  You have to go where you belong."

He paused.

"And I need
to be here, where I belong," Jimmy finished.

He felt the pain
pierce through Sapphire's very soul.  He felt the agony within his own soul,
which was now intertwined with hers.  As much love as they had felt just a few
moments before, they felt equally as much pain.

"You could
come with me," Sapphire said.  "Jimmy, your body is dead.  You belong
here with me as much as I belong on the other side.  You could come with me. 
Think of everything we could see.  Think of all we could do as beings of pure
energy."

"I
know," Jimmy said.  "I know, but I should use the power while I can
to fix my body and then put my soul back where it belongs."

At that moment, a
noise filtered through the blinding whiteness of their souls and caused them
both to look up. Tabitha's car was at the bridge.  In seconds, Tabitha, Warren,
and Jimmy's mother were at the edge of the bridge.  All of them had wide eyes
and their mouths hung open.  Below them Jimmy and Sapphire stood together,
almost formless, beings of pure energy.

"Jimmy!"
his mother screamed, and Jimmy saw tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I can't
leave my mom," Jimmy said.  "With Dad dead and Jesse gone, she has no
one.  I can't."

He felt something
that must have been a sob come from Sapphire.

"I can't
spend eternity without you," she said.  "I can't go without
you."

Jimmy reached out
to her, letting his love flow back into her.  "It won't be for eternity. 
It will just be the blink of an eye for you.  I'll join you when the time is
right.  When it's my time.  I hope you'll be the first one there to welcome me
to the other side."

Jimmy felt
Sapphire's love flow back into him.  He detected a hint of a smile.  He felt
her warmth.

"Of
course," she said.  "I'll wait as long as it takes."

With that, they
soul kissed again.  Once again, their very essence merged and intertwined. 
Jimmy felt part of Sapphire's soul embed itself into his.  He let part of his
own energy go, merging with the flow of her energy.  They would always be with
each other, he knew, at that point. They were part of each other's very souls
now. 

After what seemed
like forever, Sapphire parted from Jimmy.  He could sense the profound sadness
coming off of her in waves.  He tried not to weep—or whatever it was that he
could do in spirit form.  Sapphire looked at him, letting her hand trail
behind, touching his cheek, and then she floated down to where Jimmy's body
lay.

She extended her
hand.  The warm white light flowed from her hand and washed over the lifeless
form.  The tablecloths that bound Jimmy vanished.  Jimmy could tell that his
body was already getting cold.  For the first time, he wondered if there was
any way for him to get back into his body.  The light grew whiter and whiter
and energy crackled across the body.  Slowly, the metal form of the bullet that
was embedded inside Jimmy's heart extracted itself and then vanished as if it
had never existed.

Sapphire moved her
hand again.  This time she covered the hole over Jimmy's heart.  More light,
more energy, and the hole there vanished, and then Jimmy felt his own heart
start beating.  After that he felt a strange kind of tugging sensation. It was
all around him, pulling him in all directions. 

"No,"
Jimmy whispered.  "Wait!"

But there was no
waiting. Time was not going to stop for them no matter how much power they
shared between them.  They might be able to warp reality, but time and events
moved on without them.  Jimmy felt the entire world shifting, changing from one
of pure energy, where he could see the world for what it was, to one where he
saw the world through his actual eyes.  He was now on the ground, looking up
into the sky and into the brightness of Sapphire's essence.  He held up a hand,
surprised at how hard doing that actually was.  He was human again, and the
manipulation of energy and everything that had happened to his body came
crashing down. There was pain over his heart and down his arm.  His muscles
ached.  His head throbbed.

"Sapphire,"
Jimmy croaked.

Her beautiful,
bright essence floated closer to him, perhaps in some form of kneeling.  He
felt the warmth from her essence wash over him as she touched him, embraced
him.

"I love
you," he whispered, and as the tears came, there was no stopping them.  He
felt the tug on his heart at the realization that she would soon be gone and he
would be left here without her. 

"I
know," Sapphire said.  "And I love you.  I always will."

She moved her head
a bit, looking up at Tabitha and Warren and Jimmy's mother, who still stood
there on the bridge, as if they were afraid to move.  Jimmy saw tears coming
from his mother's eyes. 

"Take care of
them," Sapphire said. "Especially your mother."

Jimmy wanted to
say something, but found he was unable to speak, so he just nodded his head
dumbly.

"I don't know
what to do," he said, at last.  "I don't remember how I lived before
I met you and I don't know how to live when you're gone."

Sapphire smiled
and leaned down.  He felt the energy from her body as she kissed him and
caressed his face.

"You'll
learn," she said.  "Live.  Make sure you live your life, Jimmy. 
Never forget me, but don't halt everything you are supposed to be because of
me.  Promise me."

Jimmy agreed.  He
didn't know what else to do.

Sapphire began to
float away.  Jimmy extended his hand, trying to hold on to her, but her essence
slipped through his fingers, leaving warm trails across his skin.  Her touch
lingered for a moment on his fingertips, and then she departed.  Jimmy watched,
his eyes burning from the light, but unable to turn away as she floated up and
up and up, turning the night into day. She floated up above the trees while
beneath her the portal from which she and Jimmy had emerged closed and
vanished.  She spread her arms, light exploding from the center of her being. 
And then the light was gone, as if a switch had been thrown.  There was just
the after image of her form burned into Jimmy's retinas and then, following
that, darkness, and the sound of crickets and bull frogs and the gentle
rumblings of the river nearby. 

Sapphire was gone.

Jimmy was, once
again, alone.

But he was alive.

Jimmy's
mother ran to him, sliding and slipping in the mud as she made her
way down the embankment.  Jimmy stood there, feeling empty, swaying in the
breeze.  He had never felt as exhausted as he did right then.  Although the
bullet was gone, there was still a powerful ache in his chest.  He was bruised
and battered from riding in the trunk of the car.  And, finally, inside
himself, in his heart, there was the aching, raw hole that had once been
occupied by Sapphire and was now completely empty.  That may have been the
worst pain of all.

"Jimmy!"
his mother screamed, and came to him with open arms.

"Mom,"
he said, his mouth barely able to form that one simple word.

She flung her arms
around him and he fell into them.  He slumped against her, nearly knocking her
over, but her arms held him.  Over her shoulder he saw that Tabitha and Warren
were coming now. He was safe.

He was safe.

And with that
thought to hold him, Jimmy fell into unconsciousness.  Blackness took him.

Over
the next few days, as Jimmy lay in a hospital bed, recovering from numerous
contusions, bruises, lacerations, and injuries, he found out what had happened
from his mother, Tabitha, and Warren's perspective.  His doctors, meanwhile,
tried to figure out what was wrong with him and what had happened.  He also got
a visit from the sheriff and had to make up a story involving Jesse and Stan
Little that didn't include dying and coming back to life.  Given the
painkillers he was on and the general pain coursing through him, that was
easier said than done.

His mother,
Tabitha, and Warren had been back at the house when Tabitha had realized that
Jimmy was gone.  She had been on the phone for hours, making calls and
coordinating things with the newspaper to cover the death of Devlin Little. 
During that time, Jimmy's mother and Warren had come home. When his mother
asked where he was and a quick search of the house had come up empty, the three
of them had panicked.

In a rush, the
three of them had gathered up what they felt was necessary and ran outside. 
However, once they got there, all three of them, at the same time, had suddenly
had the same thought.

Get to the
bridge!

It was as if,
according to Tabitha and Warren, a voice had come into their heads and told
them where to go.  The voice was urgent, prodding, demanding that they head to
the bridge.  No sooner had the voice filtered through their thoughts when the
sky had lit up along the horizon.  Just as Jimmy had thought, the energy that
he and Sapphire had released had lit up the night for miles. 

What he couldn't
have known was the far-reaching effects that all of the energy they had
released would cause.  As the three of them had piled into the car and tried to
drive away, things had gone crazy around them.  Trees suddenly fell over and
then vanished.  Lightning struck the road in front of them out of a cloudless
sky.  Lights danced and twirled in front of them.  Reality itself seemed to
shimmer and change and ripple like water before their very eyes.  The road
moved like water, undulating underneath the car.  It was as if the planet, and
maybe even the entire universe, was slowly tearing itself apart.

When they finally
arrived at the scene, Sapphire and Jimmy were there, and they had witnessed
those moments when Sapphire ripped Jesse's soul right out of his body and then
flung it away.  They had understood it all, somehow sensing their thoughts,
their final exchanges.  They even felt the love between Jimmy and Sappphire as
they touched and as Sapphire disappeared into the night. 

They took Jimmy to
the hospital when he passed out.  They then had to deal with the sheriff and
Jesse’s body.  Stan Little, meanwhile, seemed to be in a kind of catatonic
state, but not in any great distress.  Doctors were hopeful to reach him and
bring him out of his state.  They figured that the death of his father plus the
events that Jesse had dragged him through had just been too much for him. 
Warren and Tabitha, meanwhile, had adopted Jesse’s dog Blackie and he was
adjusting nicely to their house.  Tabitha said that they had always wanted a
dog.

The days and weeks
passed.  Jimmy barely spoke.  His body recovered, but mentally he was unable to
process anything.  He went about the motions of his life, but his heart was not
in it.  Reality, once you were able to bend and shape it, was not so real
anymore, and nothing was the same.  Plus, the aching hole that had once held
Sapphire was always there.  It seemed impossible to fill.

One day when he
was at home, the sheriff came to the house to talk to Jimmy.  He came in,
nodded politely to his mother, and then sat down next to Jimmy on the couch.

"It looks
like everything you told me was right," he said.  "We found more
evidence back at Jesse's house.  He had an obsession with Sapphire.  He removed
those photos and articles from the public, but he kept copies for himself.  He also
was a big journal keeper, apparently.  And he did his best to unburden his soul
in those pages."

Jimmy nodded, but
kept his head down. He was thinking about Sapphire's eyes and how she had felt
in his arms. He remembered the feeling of her skin against his. She had been
real.  For a time, she had been real.