Part 7: Contract With God 2 – Aurora
It was almost as if we were on a subway, streams of light jetting past us, feelings of being in motion surrounding us. It was loud, sounds like horns pounded into Nick’s ears. He yelled over them, irritated, his eyes getting angrier by the second. “Who are you? Just tell me!”
I only looked into his eyes, his sad, magnificent eyes, and said nothing. The time would come for me to tell him.
*****
It stopped as quickly as it started and we were standing on top of a building looking down at a crowd.
A word appeared before Nick’s eyes. In starbursts it echoed in front of them.
SELFISH.
And then another.
CONTRACT.
He blinked. What contract? He thought. God, he had done way too many drugs. He felt as if he’d faint.
A catwalk was extending off a stage and he walked onto it. Nickolas followed it to the end. There was music and bright lights and screaming. There was all this energy and it was focused on him. He looked into the sea of faces and he recognized them all but didn’t know one of them. Another starburst.
LOVE.
Something felt as if it ripped him in half. A voice, a feeling, a moment, something more real than anything he had ever felt.
I LOVE YOU.
It was his heartbeat, it was his soul, it was every molecule of his body. It was God.
He felt my hands on his arms. “Hold on.” I whispered. And then I pushed him into the crowd.
Hands touched him all over. Crying out to him. He looked into all of their eyes. I floated right over him and he could feel me. “They all love you, Nickolas.” He felt me say.
He was crying now. It hurt his stomach to cry, but he was. “I know. But I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it.”
And as quickly as it began, it ended.
*****
Nick stood just next to Jane. He knew she couldn’t see him. He was glad. His mother was watching Aaron perform.
He felt the hands on his arm again, grounding him, taking him back. “Listen to her heart.” I told him.
Its wrong for a mother to think this way, isn’t it God? But it feels like they’ve all just been tiny replicas of the first. I love them all. I do. But none of them are him.
Nick looked up into the sky. He didn’t want to hear.
Do you know what I thought when you were born? That God had given me a reason to live. And somehow I knew that he had given me so much more than that. I suppose that in everyone he gives a special gift to human kind. But some are different. Some will touch the lives of millions. I knew that when I saw you. I knew that you would.
They weren’t at the show anymore. They were outside an ice cream stand in Lakeland that the two of them used to stop at after auditions in Orlando. They were sitting on a bench and Jane was spooning vanilla soft serve with sprinkles into her mouth. Nick had forgotten about this place. Forgotten the way Jane used to take time to buy him ice cream, scraping pennies from the bottom of her wallet. She had pushed so hard.
I had no control, Nickolas. It seemed as if there was another force moving me. Moving you. The butterflies had to soar baby. But I don’t understand how you could ever think that I didn’t love you.
Now she looked into his eyes, sternly.
Baby, I loved you every step of the way. There was no one but you that I loved. Every beat of my heart was for you. Your father used to tell me that it was wrong that I loved you so much, so much more than anything else in the whole world. And I knew. But I couldn’t stop it. And when you let go of me…when you began blaming me for your dreams, yes your dreams, Nick, coming true…well…that’s when I took refuge in the others…that’s when I started pushing as hard as I could. But I could never win you back. I had somehow lost you and you hated me and I retaliated. I couldn’t lose you, Nick. It broke my heart… I wasn’t sure if I could breathe without you to hold onto…
A tear graced Nick’s cheek.
“Take me away, Aurora.” He said. “I can’t listen anymore.”
*****
The sand was so pale. It was so warm on the bottoms of his feet. The sun beat down upon him, but it wasn’t too warm, it was perfect. Blue waves beat upon the shore. He looked once up and down the beach, did so again, turned in a circle, looked up into the sky and plopped down on his rear. Nickolas put his head in his hands and began to weep. “I’m so sorry.” He cried out to no one in particular, but knew he was being heard. He suddenly had the feeling he had always been heard.
And those hands were there again, on his arms, and that warm mouth was close to his ear. And I whispered to him, “I’m right here.”
He gasped for breath and turned to face me, looking into my eyes. And he asked me once more, “Who are you?”
And it was time to tell him. I took his hand in my own. “Walk with me, friend.” I told him. He stood, using me as an anchor and we began to walk.
*****
“I guess what you’d call it here, on earth, would be ‘soul mate’.” At these words, Nickolas stopped in his tracks and looked up at the sun.
“I don’t understand.” He said, looking down at me.
I put my hands to his lips and told him with my mind to let me finish. He had always liked to interrupt, to challenge me, but it didn’t help me explain anything to him.
“On the Other Side, where we all come from, what you may think of as heaven, we all have a twin soul. A spirit that adds the answer to every question we have, a soul that is a yin to our yang, the answer to our lives, that’s who I am. I, essentially,” I stopped, put a tiny finger on his broad chest. Nickolas inhaled, looking into my eyes, searching for truth, “am the other half of you.”
He opened his mouth to speak. I quieted him once again. Let me finish, Nickolas.
“I suppose that’s what I am first and foremost, your soul mate. But, as you asked me to be, as you chose me to be, the same way you chose your mother and your father and your brothers and sisters, the same way you chose your life theme and the way you would exit, you chose me, Aurora, your twin soul, to be your Spirit Guide as well.” I took his hand and we walked toward a dune and sat down.
“A Spirit Guide is the person we chose to walk us through life, to protect us, to connect us to the Mother and the Father and to bring us Home when we are lonely. Normally, Guides are not our twin souls, but you were adamant, and there was nothing in the rules that says twin souls cannot be Guides. It is just a bit more difficult because in many ways, we are guiding ourselves. The hurt is a bit more, the pain of living stinging us harder than it would normal guides who only watch and do not feel. But I’ve always felt as you’ve felt, and thus, I not only watch but feel your pain, happiness, love, life.”
“You haven’t been letting me in, Nickolas.” He looked down into the sand and drew lines with his toes. His hair was so blonde in this sunshine. “And the Father gave me permission to come here…to tell you…that you must not break the contract. Suicide is the only sin that cannot be forgiven.” I touched his face. “What will I do, Nickolas? If you break contract, you’ll be taken from me, for a long time….and then I’ll only be half….perhaps for an eternity.”
He looked hurt.
“Know that if you exit now, you will only come back. Over and over and over again…suffering the same, perhaps exiting the same, until you finally feel the love of God. Don’t do this, Nickolas. If not for yourself and all those who love you. And there are so many of them, my darling. But if not for them, then for me. For I know that deep down, you feel the same way for me that I do for you. And know,” He took my hand that had dropped from his face and put it back there, closing his eyes against the warmth of my fingertips, “Know that whenever you need me, I will be there, an inch away, behind you, to talk to you and hold you. I’ll be right there, my darling, I always have been.”
And as quickly as it had begun, it ended.
*****
The pill bottle crashed to the floor of the boat, scattering the tiny blue pills all over the plush beige rug. The dogs ran in and looked at Nick, who had fainted onto the couch, one hand beneath his head, the other hung over the side. He was breathing and perfectly alive.
*****
I watched him very closely the next few days. I could not believe it. But somehow, Nick Carter was a changed man. It seemed as if he had woken up and started anew, embracing all his blessings and taking life by the horns. I smiled when he called to me early one morning and went to him, holding true to my promise.
Part 8
Spirit Guide
NinasFiction
NinasFeet
