“I have died everyday, waiting for you. Darling, don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years.
I'll love you for a thousand more.”
- A Thousand Years by Christina Perri


I aid Eliza as best I can while she fixes up her appearance, but I end up just holding the mirror for her while she works.

“Why did you call Andy Andy Six?” I ask her after a few moments of silence had passed. Everyone had been visibly affected by the name once she’d said it... Like hearing a forbidden word after years of its banishment.

She raises her eyebrows slightly but does not look away from her reflection as she responds. “Google can tell you a million fascinating things,” she murmurs. “One search for Black Veil Brides turned up his alter ego and stage presence... Wait, you mean you didn’t know that was his stage name?”

I shake my head, feeling a bit put out. It’s not a big deal, but it’s still bothersome that she learned something from Google that I didn’t learn from the man himself.

“Anyway, he went by the stage name Andy Six when performing. I figured it’d be a funny thing to call him by it, kind of a joking... Mocking thing...” She shrugs, her brow pinching together as something troubling crosses her mind. “I didn’t think they’d react the way they did, though. They all locked up and exchanged uncertain looks like they weren’t sure if they were even allowed to think the name anymore. Maybe you can shed some light there? Why is it so upsetting to them?”

She’s busy blotting her makeup with a beauty blender by this point. I sigh and consider my word choice to make the delivery as easy as possible and not too informative.

“When they were all in the band together, both Andy and Ashley struggled with alcoholism, drug addiction, and self harm. It was a dark time for the whole band... My guess would be that the name just harbors some dark memories and just hearing it brought it all back.”

“Damn...” She murmurs, sighing. “I’ll apologize to them later. I didn’t think it was a big deal but then I didn’t really think about it much.”

“It’s okay...” I assure her, looking down at the water where the boys were getting in some much-needed bonding time between the five of them. “Things will be better now, I think.”

“What about you?” She asks, “Are you still moving to CA? What’s going on with that?”

I shrug a bit, my expression uncertain. “I don’t know,” I admit with a sigh. “I think it’s a pretty set-in-stone deal now. My Dad’s got a job already from a family friend with great pay. All we need to do now is tie up the loose ends here before we go.”

“So there’s nothing holding you back right now?”

“Not them, at least... I feel torn, myself. It’s even worse because I can’t even tell them half the reasons I can’t go. And on top of all of that stuff, I just want to live a normal life here. One where I get to graduate at the same school with my friends and peers and actually feel like I have a clue what I’m doing. If I go to California, I have to start all over and figure everything out again.”

“Well, just so it’s out there, my offer still stands.” She says, giving me a look. “You’re welcome to stay here with me until graduation.”

“I wish my parents would allow it but they’re hell-bent on this move being a family affair where we’re all there for each other. I understand their reasoning, but I also feel a bit like they’re only seeing their own wants and desires. Hell, it makes me sound so selfish to say that because that’s all they’ve done is worry over me... But this is the one time I really need them to listen and hear me. I can’t just leave Pendant.”

“It’s a tough deal.” She sighs, closing the foundation and tossing it back into my bag. “You’re going to be okay, right?” She asks me in a serious tone, locking eyes with me. For a moment I am completely uncertain and my reassurance gets caught in my throat.

“Ash?”

“I don’t know.” I squeak, the panic in my voice causing it to strain. “That’s the thing about things these days is that I don’t know. I could be dead tomorrow or halfway to California. I could love Andy today and loathe him tomorrow. I don’t know.”

I take a deep breath, feeling instant guilt for saying anything. She bites her lip in thought, averting her gaze elsewhere.

“Do you love him?” She nods toward the beach where Andy is chasing CC across the sand in his swimtrunks with a piece of algae on a stick, screaming something unintelligable.

“Of course.” I reply bluntly without thinking. “With all my heart.”

“Then why are you worried that tomorrow you won’t?”

I look to him again, feeling the warmth in my heart. “I guess I’m more scared that he’ll be the one to loath me and walk away.”

“Hey, he loves you. That much is pretty black and white to me, at least. On Thursday, he defended and guarded you like a loyal dog. Can’t say I’ve ever seen such a dynamic relationship, to be honest. Not even mine with Reece... Whatever it is.”

I am fidgeting around with nervous energy. “I don’t know.” I repeat with a sigh.

~~~


Once Eliza had repaired her appearance, we make our way back down to the shore. This time around, she keeps clear of the deeper water in favor of the wet sand on the shore. It wasn’t long before CC came sprinting out of the water to keep her company.

I sat with her for a bit while CC worked on constructing a sandcastle from the damp sand. He offers for Eliza to assist him, and she does for a little bit, before Jake comes by to offer up a more intiguing option.

“Hey Eliza,” Jake calls to her,“Want to walk up the beach with us? Me and Jinxx are gonna go sniff out some beers.”

She looks like she is going to say no, but then she surprises me by nodding and climbing to her feet, heading upshore alongside them.

I look back at CC who is busy working away, trying to convince Ashley to help him in her place.

“Why are you playing in the sand when you came for the girls?” Ashley asks him, nodding toward the other end of the beach where plenty of girls his age were laughing and having a great time. CC processes this thoughtfully for a moment before leaping to his feet and sprinting barefoot across the sand to catch up to Jinxx, Jake, and Eliza. Ashley follows them, choosing to take his time.

“Wait for me!” CC cries out, zipping across the beach.

With all of them gone, it leaves just me and Andy sitting here on the calm shore in our swimsuits, with me getting a slow sunburn on my shoulders.

“I could bury you in the sand, if you’d like.” I tell him, nodding toward the little plastic kids’ shovel CC had left behind.

“How about we go for a swim?” Andy proposes, nudging my arm. There’s a sly look in his eye and I realize he doesn’t mean the normal swimming... He means the ghost swimming.

I jump to my feet, eager to experience the underwater breathing again. I grab onto his hand and yank him to his feet, running into the water, sending waves all around us.

I look over at him for an instant, and he’s wearing the biggest grin on his face, blinking away the water droplets as we fight against the weight of the water to get as far out as possible. Soon enough we’re merely waddling along, up to our ribs in the bright aqua water.

Hand in hand, we walk out slowly, the lake gradually getting deeper.

“It’s moments like these that drown out everything else.” I murmur thoughtfully, the warm breeze rolling off the water and knocking strands of hair free of my messy bun pinned on top of my head. “These moments between us that silence the stress and fear... Where we can simply pretend we’re the same and just stupid teens living life.”

I take a deep breath, concentrating on the sweet smell of the algae, listening to the soft sloshing of the water against us as we push on deeper into the depths, just trying to hang on to every detail that makes this day special.

“Hopefully now we can have more of them.” Andy agrees, his words accompanied by a soft squeeze of my hand.

“Like the prom?” I shoot him a crooked smile. “You got a suit?”

“Sure do.” He replies with a proud smile. “My funeral attire, of course.”

“I do like that suit on you.” I muse, remembering the one time I’d seen him in it... It wasn’t a happy memory, though... Us bawling and blubbering all over each other.

“Oh, Eliza dropped a little detail earlier that will make getting me into the prom without being recognized much easier.”

“What’s that?”

“The theme apparently... Is Phantom of the Opera.”

I look up at him, seeing the enthusiasm in his bright blue eyes.

“Which means we get to wear masquerade masks! Conceal our identies and be total badasses stealing the prom... Hell yeah things are gonna go right this time.” He gives a firm nod, wearing a chill smile.

“Undercover... I like it.”

The smooth stones under my feet give away to sloping slimey sand. I hold onto Andy’s arm as we head deeper, weary of where I step as I can no longer see my own feet.

“We’re gonna make the most of the night,” He assures, “because to be honest, I don’t know the next time we’re gonna have the freedom to have that much fun.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know...” He shrugs, looking to the treeline on the far side of the lake. “I just feel like more bad is to come.”

“Way to bring the storm.” I deadpan, shooting him a look to remind him that we’re supposed to be ignoring the bad right now.

“Sorry.” He apologizes, smiling slightly. “Bad habit.”

The water reaches for my collarbone, making me feel a bit clausterphobic with it sitting so high. I take a deep calming breath, and continue my inching steps out into the depths.

Andy senses my discomfort. With an amused chuckle, he scoops me up into his arms bridal style and carries me out the rest of the way, reminding me again of how he’s a literal skyscraper of a man.

“You know,” he says with a slight smile of private enjoyment. “This suits you well.”

“Huh?”

“Me carrying you about like this?” He walks in a little circle, my feet skimming the top of the water as he does.

“What ever are you implying Mr. Biersack?” I ask him in a jokingly professional tone, quirking a brow at him.

His smile grows into a grin as he proceeds to walk deeper into the water. “Well, it’s just got me thinking that perhaps...”

“Perhaps?...” I echo him, urging him to hurry up and spit it out.

“Perhaps you’d make an awesome Mrs. Biersack.”

“Oh, you’re kidding,” I laugh, smacking his chest. “What is so appealing about wanting to marry me? A drab mortal?”

He quirks a brow in thought and then shrugs. “Oh I don’t know... It’d be a fun experiment, I suppose.”

I glare at him jokingly, getting him to laugh. “No, seriously... I’ve been thinking about it a bit. And I know I said I couldn’t at the cemetery, but I’ve given it some thought and I’ve realize that it is perhaps the only human thing I can give you.”

“So... Is this a proper proposal?” I ask him curiously.

“Oh heavens, no...” He shakes his head. “Romantic as this all is, no. I can do much, much better to impress you. I just wanted to know if you’d be down for it.”

“I was down for helping dig up your body,” I remind him with a laugh, “I’m definitely down to marrying you.”

“Good.” He grins, “because I didn’t have a backup plan if you said no.”

“So I was your first choice?”

“Always.” He kisses me with a smile on his face. I cup his jaw in my hand, fighting laughter. He keeps walking until the water has covered up both of us and we’re to our necks.

“Are you ready for this?”

“Let’s swim with the fishies!”

Even though I know exactly what will happen once we are submerged, I still take a deep breath as we sink under the water. A swarm of bubbles rising up from under us, rushing to the surface as we sink.

It takes some mental coaxing before I willingly let go of the air in my lungs and will myself to take a deep breath of the lake water. Like before, I can feel it in my lungs, but it does not burn nor feel like suffocation. It feels like what I imagine it’s like to be a fish.

Andy lets go of me and I drift from his arms, still holding onto his hand. I don’t want to push the abilites by attempting to get too far from him, so I stick close to his side.

I look down below me, and I can still faintly make out the dark sand six feet under me, still sloping downward toward the center of the lake.

Andy makes a gesture and points downward to indicate that we would be going deeper. I nod in response and hold on tight to his hand as he begins to swim down.

The water is absolutely beautiful during midday. Everything is bright, colorful, and vibrant, and, as promised, there are lots of fish.

I reach out my other hand toward the ones swimming by, minding their own business. They notice me reaching for them and dart out of the way. They were clearly not expecting anyone to be down here but them.

I take a deep breath, feeling the water swirling in the lungs painlessly. A stark constrast to the feeling I felt drowning in that flooded cellar, locked away by who I thought was the neighbor kids but was actually another projection of the shapeshifter.

For a brief moment, I wonder idly if it is really Andy by my side or the shapeshifter himself leading me to my doom.

He leads us down to the lowest point of the lake where the light grows dim and the water creatures are plenty. He snakes his arm around my waist, pulling me close to his side while we admire the view.

This kind of stuff just doesn't happen in real life. You don’t get to go underwater and breath freely with no strings attached. This is like a dream.

Andy drifts from my side slightly, pulling himself around to face me, holding my face in his hands, looking at me with darkened eyes filled with wonder. I reach for him, placing my hand along the side of his face, looking back at him.

He combs his fingers through my hair, watching the green strands move smoothly between each finger. I place my hand over his, pressing his cold palm to my cheek and closing my eyes.

Way down here, everything is muted. The water in my ears drowns out all the unnecessary noise, all the distractions. Now it’s as though we’re in a private world where only us two exist.

Here only our vision and feelings work and exist. Without the ability to speak, there are no words to ruin this moment.

Beautiful. Andy mouths, small bubbles slipping from his lips.

I hold his jaw in my hands, wondering with this new, giddy, private excitement what it’d be like to have him for a husband. To have and to hold... For as long as we both shall... Maybe till death do us part would be better.

How could I possibly be so blessed to have this beautiful human in my life? A twist of fate that my Dad even chose to take that road home from church that day. We never would have known of each other otherwise... My parents would have attended the funeral alone and I probably would’ve stayed home, and I never would have known more about the strange... Beautiful dead boy who has become my best friend.

I love you I mouth back to him and he smiles. I move my hand to the base of the back of his neck, cradling his head in my hand, running my fingers through his light brown hair, now dark green in the depths of the lake.

I pull him toward me, us sitting in the slick sand, knees digging into the soil and vegetation. The sudden movement startles a school of sunfish swimming by, sending them scattering all around us like a swarm of butterflies.

I stare into his eyes, seeing the soft innocence in them... One of the few things untouched by his dark past.

I bring pull him close to me, holding his face in my hands just inches away from my own. I place a kiss upon his lips, long and lingering, to make up for the all the times I didn’t have the guts to do it and all the times he didn’t make the first move.

I’ve never loved something so much in all my life, that much I am absolutely certain of.

This is the one normal thing in my life, I suppose. To feel the giddy, devoted and head-over-heels adoration for another person. The normal teenage romance that my parents would scoff at if they knew. They’d probably wish us the best while secretly thinking that we’d never make it.

No one else truly knows the extent of all we have been through. Saving each other... Me saving him less so, but still, and doing unspeakable things in the name of keeping one another close.

All I know of love and romance is what I’ve learned through sappy romance films and what I’ve witnessed between my own parents. Even so, none of the preparation taught me the one thing that is most precious about all of this: The rewarding feeling of giving as much love as you recieve.

We break free, and look up to the surface. With a smile and a silent laugh, he gestures upward in a way of asking if I’m ready to go back up. I nod in response and we swim free of the tangles of seaweed and sand toward the brightly lit surface.

Unfortunately, surfacing was not as beautiful and graceful as the rest of the moment because I completely forgot about the part where your lungs have to switch back to breathing air, but can’t because they’re full of water so you have to cough and choke for a bit.

We’re near one of the tiny islands near the center of the lake, only about the size of a small house with a couple aspen trees inhabiting it. Andy aids me toward the shore where I can hack and cough more efficiently.

“You okay?” He asks and I nod, waving him off while I get my shit together. Once I am confident that I can breath again, I look up at him with a grin, blinking away the water falling into my eyes.

“Regardless of almost dying just now, that is one of the single coolest things ever. Probably one of my favorite abilties of yours.”

“I like the invisibility one, myself.” He replies, sitting down in the sand beside me, all disheveled and wet, his arm and chest tattoos shimmering in the bright sunlight.

I lean my head over onto his shoulder and look out across the lake to where our campsite had been set up earlier. Further up the beach is a decent sized crowd of young folk have a great time. I can’t distinguish any of our people out of them, but I know there in there somewhere.

“Hey you know what?”

“What?”

“I think I know the real reason my parents always thought of this place as being sacred and peaceful... Why they loved it so much.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s Talia.” I breathe in surprise, shocked I didn’t realize it sooner. “It’s their only way of remembering their lost daughter.” I murmur, trying to feel her presence on the breeze and in the droplets drying on my skin.

He hums in response, looking thoughtful.

“After they lost her, we came here more often, and for the few hours we were here, everyone was happy and at peace. It’s always been that way. Even to this day they love it here, it’s their happy place.”

“I wonder what she would’ve been like,” I muse thoughtfully. “She probably would’ve had my Dad’s ever-dominant black hair and my Mom’s loving blue eyes. She would have been sassy and kind and everything I could’ve asked for in a partner-in-crime... My parents would already be grey and sporting a matching set of crows feet.”

“There’s definitely a reason that I am an only child... I got into enough trouble for two before I was even ten.” He laughed.

“Aw come on, you were a good kid deep down.”

“I broke my Mom’s beloved vase while trying to recreate a dramatic heavy metal breakdown in the living room at age nine...” He winces in embarrassment at the memory.

“How did your Mom not kill you?”

“I have no idea.” He laughs. “I was a shitty kid.”

“You were a good kid,” I say again, “A good kid with a lot of demons and no weapons to fight them with.”

“I am so damn proud of myself for making it through that dark part of my life.” He says with a small nod.

“You made it through the rough times,” I agree with a pleasant smile, “And made it to the better times.”

I say it before I even realize that again, I have gotten caught up in foolishly believing that he is alive. None of his efforts matter now because it all ended in the same grim fashion. I peek over at him to see if he’s noticed, but if he has, he hides it well behind his pleasant expression despite the circumstances.

“I wonder what time it is...”

“I have no idea... I have to be to the wedding by four thirty at least, they’re exchanging vows at five.”

The sun is sitting a little past the highest point in the sky, leaning toward late afternoon.

“If I had to guess, it’s probably a little after three... Want to head back and get some normal socialization in before you have to go?”

I nod in agreement, climbing to my feet, grabbing his hand again.

“Want me to carry you again?”

“No...” I reply as we walk into the water to begin making our way back. “Save it for the special day.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He chuckles proudly, submerging under the water by my side.

Notes

This song inspired the scene with Andy and Ash talking on the beach after swimming: Fine China by Lana Del Rey

My computer is being a royal shit these days so bear with me! It crashes multiple times a day and I have not been able to pinpoint what's causing it just yet. On that note, if anyone is a computer techie and knows a bit about the blue screen of death known as the glorious 'kernal inpage data error' let me know! Because Google isn't too helpful here lol.

Thank you so much for your comments! Merelan and Mezzy18!