FINISH ME BEFORE THE CANDLE FALTERS
When Mara took Felicity in her arms, she did not know that Felicity had planned to die.
Felicity did not know how to tell her girlfriend that the doctor’s white coat caught on the door as it closed, just as her voice caught when the doctor casted X-rays like playing cards into her hands, asked her to pick, and told her when to die.
She said Felicity had only a few months before her world would twinkle into divine murk. She didn’t know how to tell Mara when she returned from her appointment months ago, and didn’t after all the time that followed. Perhaps it was because Felicity had not begun to believe it herself, had not begun to process a world in which Felicity was no longer Felicity. She did not know how to tell Mara. She didn’t know how to tell herself, though. All she had to do was reveal her doctor’s blue-black playing cards and their lives would crash down in a flurry of could haves, would haves, and cannots.
Felicity felt she was the candlestick they’d left burning on her nightstand. Temporarily temporal. Soon-to-be nothing more than silvery whispers and soot. Mara kissed her deep then, as if to leave a piece of her soul upon Felicity’s tongue. The kiss was desperate, even, and the dying girl wondered if Mara already knew her fatal secret. She wondered if Mara knew even as the kiss became more.
Mara was tender when Felicity took her in her mouth, succulent venison, the two melting and coalescing into one another, becoming one. Mara was sweet and Felicity knew that to tell her their time was closing would be to sour her honeyed face into a salty pucker.
When Mara placed herself inside Felicity, she did not know that her lover had planned to die. She didn’t know it when they found each other between filmy ivory gossamer and hushed gasps, did not know when they reached their zenith together. Climax meant nearing the end. Climax meant resolution. Felicity did not want to finish, did not want her body to swell with expectancy of arrival, the settled finality of it all. Felicity wanted this moment of their story to be their semicolon, their exclamation, but not their period. Perhaps the way her body arched against Mara was a question mark.
Sweat pearled their brows and life seemed to catch in their throats. The candle on the nightstand dripped in thick rivulets of alabaster like how Mara’s gift trickled from between Felicity’s thighs.
What was it, to die?
Would death come to her gently, would it enter her and fill her with whatever “after” was? Or, would death come sputtering, confused, panicked? Would it grab her by the wrist, shouting, and throttle her into the dark? Would it be a whisper in her ear as she wafted head-first into sleep?
“I love you, Mara.” The two were breathless, caught between thin layers of linen, their bodies stuck to one another, the pair in the maundering haze that comes after.
“I’ll love you always, Fliss.” That is what Mara called her. Felicity did not know where it came from. Fliss.
Felicity sighed.
“Hm?” Mara’s brow quirked, a line creased her forehead. Felicity planted a kiss upon it. “I don’t know,” she started.
“Hush,” Mara shuffled, leaned against the bed frame, and opened her arm to Felicity. Mara’s -sh whistled, a product of the space between her front teeth. Mara hated how it seemed to catch the spinach of her sandwich and the wind of her consonants. Felicity, comparatively, adored it. The girls settled into one another’s warmth.
Mara did not know how little time they had. Mara did not know how much they had to say. Mara did not know there was no time for hush.
Felicity wraps her arms around her lover. No time is enough time.
“I’m leaving, Mara.”
Felicity felt Mara tense. Mara felt Felicity tremble. What was it, to die?
The candlestick stuttered into pitch.
E.B. Davis, 21, USA ✯ IG: @fatally_femme
“E.B. Davis (she/her) is a queer, transgender writer from Lexington, Kentucky. She is currently pursuing a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing from Transylvania University. On the off-chance she’s not plucking away at her writing, she can be found cozied up with her short-haired gray tabby and a book.”