LOVE WON'T DENY YOU
Standalone
Interactive
Hey, , it's me, .
It's beautiful out tonight. In the midst of this starry, cloudless sky I know somehow you're with me, right here beside your gravestone.
I haven't been here in ages. Haven't really gotten around to it - you know, touring and all. You may think I'm just procrastinating, and you'd be right. I can't bear to see your name etched away forever just like you have been now, the past five years. When I got the call, that you were at the hospital and the outcome wouldn't be good - my world immediately crumbled to pieces at my feet. I hadn't known what I deserved to have to taken from me, but then I come to think I don't know what I did to ever deserve you in the first place.
To think how different things could have been! How different things could be. Maybe I wouldn't be sitting here in the grass, talking to a slab of granite, if I hadn't let you go...
The night shouldn't have ended that way.
I knew you were frustrated and scared, and so was I. I'd just come back from touring that night, and then I came home... to you... lying on the couch... about eight months along...
...with my baby.
I know you wouldn't want me to blame myself, however, I still do. I blew things so out of proportion I couldn't see straight. Why we fought, I didn't know. Why you left, I didn't know. But why I didn't stop you is something I'll never solve. I don't even blame you for not telling me sooner, acting the way I had. I'd be afraid of me, too. I remember your parting words still, and with such clarity. "You can try to deny love, but love won't deny you." I was foolish then, and I denied you. Denied love.
I let you go, and when I did, I got slammed drunk. I didn't know what to do anymore. The only thoughts running through my mind were "My life is ruined," and "How am I supposed to raise a kid when I'm just a kid myself?" Not even thinking about what it was doing to you. You'd had nine months to prepare to be a mother, and I was having to brace myself in one. And I'd thought you were the selfish one - and that's something I will never forgive myself for considering. Several hours later, I got a call from a hospital about twenty minutes away. And I realized that the words 'your pregnant girlfriend is dying' are lethal in a single sentence. And I never want to have to hear that sentence again.
I took the nearest cab to the hospital, and even in my intoxicated haze, I knew I was going to lose you that night. I stumbled all the way to your room, where I wasn't even permitted in. Not permitted to see my own dying girlfriend? Why? The doctors were telling me that there was no way you were ever going to survive, but the baby had a chance. The very baby that had you lying in the hospital room, the very subject of our dispute. And the baby was going to survive? It wasn't fair! None of it was fair! But I knew I had to save her, our little . She was - and is - the only physical piece of you I had in my possession. I waited in burdening silence as you were dying in the next room, giving life to our creation. When I was finally allowed to see you, I knew you were dead. I ran into your room with such fury, such rage, and such emotion I about collapsed on the floor and died just feet away from you.
I looked at you for the longest time. I didn't do anything but sit and watch your motionless body. You were so pale and fragile, I was afraid to touch you, as if you would break under my fingertips. Finally, when I just couldn't take it anymore, I crumpled on top of you and sobbed. There was no way to handle losing you any other way. I wanted to kiss you until I was pale and fragile as you were, but I knew I never could. I rid myself of all my tears, and I laid with you for what seemed too short of time. I hadn't even realized the sun had already come up. walked into the room, and that's when I saw her. Our little girl, lying snug in 's arms, your eyes looking up at me from her tiny face.
And I knew, was and always would be the love of my life. I love her so much, and yet every day, she seems to scare the hell out of me more than when I first found out she was mine. She knows about you, and she loves you like crazy. When I cut her sandwiches because she likes it just how you did; when I kiss her scrapes and cuts to make them better, and when I tell her stories about you, I feel as if you're there beside me, mothering her like you had always wanted to do. And I love you for that, because I need you so badly sometimes, it frightens me.
She's so much like you, and she resembles you more and more each day. Her ringlets and crooked smile. She even paints 's nails pink, and even he admits she isn't bad at it. I don't think you'd approve very much if I let her become a manicurist, though.
I wish I would never have to leave you again, to part ways like we had that night. But you'd want me to move on and take care of our daughter. Now I only wish you were just here for her, and in some ways you still are. And I'm glad to know that in some ways, I have given you peace. Because in the face of your death, in the face of my agony, and the face of my future transforming before my very eyes...
I didn't deny love.