title: See Above 
Authoress:Missmurer83 (duh)
Summary:A guy dies, Girl must survive! I actually like this one. Hence why I’m posting this.
I never intended on falling in love. I never actually thought I had a chance with anyone back then, that I didn’t have a true love. I was just a normal teen when it came down to it. Sure I admit I was some-what interesting. Weird even, but I never was completely insane. I was clean shaven I guess is what I’m saying. I had never done anything horribly translucent, [in my world that means vain or selfish] or even remotely shocking. Other than egging an entire neighbor hood on Halloween a few years back.
I’ve lost control a few times. Just intense yelling. I’ve even cheated on a boyfriend to some degree. (Only one. and I still feel terrible.) I’ve planned the demise of several enemies, but never gone through with it. I’m guessing that’s why I met him.
This “him” happens to be named Jacob O’Riley. Yes, I know that he sounds like a leprechaun, but he’s much, much more than that to me. Also, he isn’t a bloody leprechaun. Also he’s not a leprechaun. He’s a guy. A tall, stunningly blue eyed, black haired, musically gifted, guy. When I say musically gifted I don’t mean he’s the star student of our school band. I mean he can look at someone and hear their song. Their music. Notes composed into a life, a living breathing person. Each song different. That’s what he saw when he looked at anyone. He saw music waiting to be written down, to tell their unique story. To be played out as life. He could see the scenes that shaped everyone, the places they’ve been the struggles they’ve faced. His music, the stories of the people around him were beautiful. It really was beautiful. There’s no way to describe the way he could convert into a song a story, it’s too amazing, to indescribable. He knew just the right instruments and notes to draw tears to your eyes, and fuel your heart with fury.
The day we met was a day in December, it was snowing and I was in the mall with a small group of friends discussing our latest news(mainly how my best friend finally got a boyfriend). I was sitting with them in the back of the food court near the shops trying to avoid the hundreds of tourists flocking to get lunch and return to their holiday shopping. That’s when Jacob showed up. He didn’t look like anything special, at first, really just another mall-goer from our little town. No big deal. If fact, I probably wouldn’t have noticed ihm if he A] weren’t heading in our direction and b] he didn’t have such inescapable eyes. “Hi…” he said quietly. “I’m um…Jacob. Can I um… talk to you?” He was so shy and cute, with those bright blue eyes, so…captivating is the only word. There was just something about him that I wanted to find out. I didn’t know what, and probably didn’t need to at the time.
“Um…Sure. I’m, um, Amy. Amy Jackson.” We sat down at the table across from the one where my friends still sat, gawking at me and Jacob.
“I’m not sure how to say this… but I want to..err….write your… song.” He said this quickly and I felt my right eyebrow arch.
“Huh?” I asked dumbfounded.
“O um, your song…it’s like…the way your life plays out, only in music. It’s hard to describe. Really, really hard.”
“My life in music…I’m guessing that you don’t mean something like High School musical do you? Something more uhhh…Instrumental?” I asked this only because I was completely obsessed with music, but musicals weren’t my thing..
“How’d you know that?” He looked almost shocked.
“You don’t look like the type to write for Broadway. You look more…um… something classical. Rock maybe, as well, judging from the necklace.” He stared at me like he was amazed. Sometimes I do that to people. I can read some people like that. I don’t know why. His mouth dropped open a bit. It was almost funny.
“I…um…instrumental…” He looked down at the thick black notebook on the table in front of him. It had hundreds of notes on it. “How you…no one has ever been able to tell that before…” He kept the same amazed expression, but he was staring at me. “No one ever guesses classical. They all think I play guitar, which I do, but I play mainly violin. I’m in an orchestra.”
“Really? Cool. I play Sax off and on for a local band.” Jacob paused and wrote something in his notebook.
“Where are you from?” I asked. I had certainly never seen him before. “I just moved here from New York. It was too hectic for me and my family.”
“O AMY!” called Julie stretching out the “a” for a few seconds. “We need to get going now! My Mom’ll be here soon!”
“I have to go,” I said turning to him. “Here,” I wrote my phone number on a corner of his notebook paper. “Call me. This has been…interesting. Bye.” I stood and ran after Julie. “Way to ruin a conversation.” I say flatly as we passed Taco John’s”
“Sorry” she said stretching out the “o”. “He was hot. Good hair. Yep.” She skipped off. Amy was weird like that most days. I think she had ADD or something. I knew for a fact she took meds every morning. That was almost a year ago today. It’s October. After that he called me and we talked for hours. He was going to my school and was a year older than me. We had a lot in common, we listened to the same bands, read the same books, had the same obsession with music, practically everything. Still, he was surprising. He knew things about people that I could never have figured out. He said he was just good at reading facial and body expressions. He didn’t believe in downloading music. I downloaded music constantly from iTunes.
“iTunes is stupid.” He said, “If you don’t buy the CD there’s no… I don’t know what it is. I just hate not having the album, the CD in my hands. Like if I don’t it’ll disappear. It’s like…proof I guess.”
I figured he didn’t like things disappearing. Or leaving, come to think of it. He had never met his father. He had promised he’d be right back, and then he was gone. Just like that. No one knew where he went; no one could find him anywhere. Jacob didn’t think he walked out, he thought he crashed or something and no one found him. We became good friends, best friends.“O my god!” Amy practically screamed into the phone. “I can’t believe your friends with him! I still think he’s hot, but then of course I would never date him ever. Too quiet for me you know? He barely says anything to anyone other than you and Michelle and Mike…you know, dorchestra twins.”
“Don’t call them that.”This was true. We were his few close friends. Michelle and Mike were friends of his from school They were twins. And both played Viola. He didn’t like people much at all. Like me, he hated crowds of people. They were annoying and loud and didn’t understand what truly went on in the world.
Jacob preferred his black notebook, its pages covered in notes. Musical notes, of course. There were almost never any words in it. It was like he knew exactly what everything meant and how it was supposed to sound without any markings. Every once and a while there were dynamics and tempo changes. Then there were the names. Every song had a human name. There was one for me, one for Michelle, Mike; those were the only ones I knew. Every other piece was for people I never knew. The only way I knew about them was when Jacob played.
When he played for me…that was more than amazing. I can’t describe it to you in words at all. He was better than anyone. A prodigy really. He belonged at some musical school, not Jefferson High.The music he wrote was for an orchestra, but alone he was twice as good. He could bring tears to my eyes and make me want to dance around like a happy idiot.(Which, thankfully I never did) What he could do with his violin, and guitar was better than anything on earth, to me. Never any mistakes, always…wow. If you could hear him play, hear him sing. He belonged in Julliard or some other music school like that, but for whatever reason, he wasn’t even in an orchestra outside school.
“Why don’t you play like this in public?” I asked quietly one night after he had finished a new song. It was near Christmas and basically the only light was coming from the bright Christmas tree lights outside his window.
“I can’t. I don’t now why. They don’t seem to understand why I do this…write songs I mean.” His eyes flashed in the dim light. His red guitar gave off a soft light almost, sometimes sending bight flashes onto the ceiling.
“ Do you realize how amazing your music is, J? I can’t describe it to you. Sometimes it’s so beautiful I could cry. And then sometimes it makes me so happy I could jump up and scream. Magical.” I paused. “Who else has heard you play your pieces?”
“Only you.” He looked down shyly.
“You can’t let these go to waste on me. Show the world. Teach them what music really is. Or at least show the twins.”
“Nothing is wasted on you.” He assured. “Everything I play for you was written for your ears only. At least for now.” he paused. “It sounds like you.” He smiled. “It sounds beautiful. Well, from what you tell me” He added quietly, looking down shyly again. I felt myself smile. I couldn’t look at him right then. I felt the color rise in my cheeks.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“Don’t,” he whispered back. “It’s true.” “
You’re too….” I whisper. “This is all good to be true. You are too… kind and ingenious. It’s unreal. ” “Maybe,” Jacob smiled and put his guitar in a corner of his room.
“ But, if it’s any consolation, I would never lie to you. Never have. And I think I’m quite content with myself. Content with my life. Amazed beyond belief by you. You don’t seem to understand how many lives you’ve changed.”
I searched for something to say. Finally I quit attempting, though. He walked back across the room and sat in front of me. We were just sitting there, facing each other. That’s when he kissed me. Actually kissed me, right there in his room.
He was so perfect. So beautifully flawed, with the scar on his neck the he got from sticking his head out a car window and the bruises he got from when he and Michael acted like the idiots they happened to be in the other’s presence. It was like a flood of memories breached my mind just then. Every memory of him and me over two short moths flooded back to me at that contact. I’d never felt like that before. Ever. It was hard to describe, well, hard to describe to those who had never felt it.
Those who have know exactly what it was like. It was love. It was utterly terrifying, but was still completely brilliant, like the sun, you could say. I wasn’t sure what to say when we pulled apart. Apparently neither was he. There was only silence and far off “Silent Night” was playing. The silence was ok though. I guess we didn’t need words. It was a scene worthy of any sappy love movie that all the girls in my class were crazy about(Including Amy). Only this was real life. My life. To describe what it feels like you have to have experienced it. If you haven’t, just wait. And if you never do, I pity you.
After that, we were practically inseparable. People no longer referred to us as two separate people, but as Jules and Jacob.
God, how I wish it was still like that. There are so many things I learned about him back then that I still cherish.
Like how he was terrified beyond all reason of water. He purposefully got wrong answers on tests so no one knew how smart he really was. He could sit alone for hours upon hours in his room with the lights turned off, just to think. Compose. Dream. How he never had finished a book in his life. He always forgot about them. His bookshelf was lined with dog-eared pages.
It was a very normal day. A Tuesday to be exact. I remember far better than I ever would have wanted to.
Jacob had gotten his license two months before. We were driving down the highway to get to this small town a couple hours away that had the best malts in the state.
The highway outside our town went past this canyon kind of place. It was basically a tourist site, but it was like a mini-grand canyon. So we were driving past, going around eighty, when all of the sudden there was this truck. A red Chevy. It was turning out of the Canyon parking lot, right as we were driving past.
Jacob swerved last second to the right. Unfortunately, to the right was a wooden fence blocking off the canyon(A fucking wooden fence, people. How is that safe??). I was screaming as we went over.
It was the most terrifying thing I think I’d ever experience was falling like that, seeing Jacob one last time. I latched onto his amr like a life preserver. Then we hit the bottom. Everything went black.
I woke up three days later in a hospital bed. There were flowers and “Get Well soon!” balloons everywhere (Also a balloon that read “Don’t Die!, most liekly from Amy ) . I had almost no idea what happened. Then I started to remember.
God, where was Jacob?
The nurse came in and smiled warmly. “Hello, hon.” She said. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. You remember the accident?” I nodded dumbly. “Well, you have a few broken bones and suffered a minor concussion, but other than that you’ll be fine.”
“What about Jacob?” I said quickly. “The boy in the car with me? Is he ok?” The nurses smile faded. I felt my heartbeat quicken. That was never a good sign.“Well, hon.” She said “Your friend, Jacob, suffered some major injuries and I’m afraid.” She paused to sigh, and I felt the tears build up behind my eyes. “I’m afraid your friend passed away before he arrived here.”
Everything slowed down. It was like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. My mouth felt dry and tears spilled silently down my cheeks. Soon I was sobbing into my hands. I prayed to god that it was it just some twisted nightmare.
Then I was screaming. A lot. And I remember throwing a vase full of flowers against the wall. They had to give me sedative.
Jacob couldn’t die. He wasn’t dead. He was sitting in his room, notebook in hand, scribbling down notes and dynamics and time changes. He was singing and performing. He had to be alive. Blue-eyed black haired Jacob O’Riley, love of my teenage life, couldn’t be dead.
God couldn’t be so cruel to me.
Everything was a blur. I left the hospital. I attended his funeral. I lost it. I would never see him again. Ever. All I had was a few pictures and memories. I would never hear him sing again. Never hear anyone’s life played out in music.
I would never. Hear. Him. Sing. Never again would I see him smile or see him playing with a hacky-sack in the Twin’s backyard.
Having a broken heart actually hurts, you know, like a constant ache in you chest. A constant scream in the back of your mind. All you ever want is for it to go away. But it never does and I kills you, inside out. I can’t say a word to anyone. I’ve tried. Whenever I open my mouth, it’s like there’s no point in saying anything if the one person I want to hear it isn’t there and never again will be. I feel like I’m the one who died.
And I might as well have been. So I’m standing here, here where our car went over and we died. And I’m clutching his notebook.
And I’m falling.
And I for the first time in months, there is light.
