I Love You, Always

[Izaak Finch]

The night sky seemed to stretch on for an eternity before the rumbling Chevrolet and the stars encrusted on the horizon might as well have been the vehicle’s destination because Byron Bay didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight, not near or far or anywhere in between. The thought was entertained in Izaak’s mind as he pressed an old scuffed Converse sneaker further down on the accelerator pedal and listened only half-heartedly as his beloved car choked a little on the gas he had fed her. He wondered if Ella was up there amongst them, if she perhaps even had a star to call her own. It seemed a silly little thought to occupy the silence in the transition between songs over the stereo but it had hung its magic over Izaak already. He had never been a big believer in heaven, had always been sceptical of an afterlife and often raised a question mark above the sheer possibility of life after death. In a technical sense he knew all about death itself, it’s gruesome ins and outs as it took hold of one’s body and perhaps that was why he had been stubborn on the matter. But even though she had been robbed of her first breath and her heartbeat smuggled away from her, his daughter was the only person ever to shed a light over his narrowed, straight to the point views.

Azure eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror and Izaak’s glance met with the empty leather of the backseat. If fate had not been so cruel to he, Alexis and their precious little girl, she would have been there in the reflection, flexing her tiny fists up at him from inside her capsule. A smile played sadly on the corners of his lips as he found Alexis with those eyes of his and wondered if she too had had the very same thought since they had left Sydney that afternoon. No prizes for guessing, he thought to himself with an inward sigh. Izaak wasn’t going to dress their situation up, he wasn’t going to tie a glorious red ribbon around it and pretend it was something it wasn’t because things hadn’t been the same since her birthday. Who would have ever guessed that a baby, one they had never intended to conceive nor have, would be the very thing to make and break Alexis and Izaak? And now, with her precious life having been ripped straight from their hands, they were stuck in the midst of grief and what he could only call a quarter life crisis together. In the three months that had passed life was piecing itself back together at a sluggish pace, working on one stitch by tiny stitch each day to put them on the road to mending. But what was becoming ever clearer too was that they’d have nothing if they didn’t have one another. Izaak was adamant, he’d help Alexis through this just as she would him and when they were finally ready years down the track, in wedlock as they had imagined before Ella’s surprise arrival into their lives, they’d prepare for the pitter patter of tiny feet again with Ella in their hearts, their memories and now as Izaak came to believe, the scarcity of stars in the city sky too. He and Alexis, they were a forever kind of thing.

It had not been since that fateful day that the couple had dared to venture anywhere outside the skirts of Sydney. But Izaak had quickly gotten fed up of the constant rat race that rushed past the pair of them, the polluted air that clogged up their lungs, the days he might as well have turned the engine off to make a turn out into the heart of the city. The perpetual need Sydneysiders seemed to have to be somewhere and fast too had been eating slowly away at Izaak, his irritation growing at how they seemed not to care about anything more than the Dow Jones when he had just lost his daughter. So with a place in mind, one he had last visited before he had known Alexis was pregnant, Izaak had posed the idea of an escape to his fiancée and now here they were, on the deserted road to Byron Bay. Over the gentle rumble of his Chevvy, Izaak heard the first few notes of a familiar song, realising now that this was the mix of songs he had made for Alexis for last year’s Valentine’s day. Softly smiling first to himself and then to his ever beautiful lover he reached over the gearstick to place one hand upon her knee and squeeze it gently in reassurance of his faith in them. Initially he had personally made it their break-up song, listening to it on repeat for days on end after that ancient old incident at the mall with Isabella. But now, regardless of the lyrics, it seemed to be theirs. And with the number of times that they had slow danced to it, listened to it as they cuddled together on the couch, even made love as it played somewhere in the background; it just had to be. “We'll be ok beautiful. I love you, always.” Came the deep and soothing timbre of his voice as his broad palm caressed the top of her thigh comfortingly. Always, always, always. Not in the universe was there a word quite as sure as always. Just as quickly as his azure eyes darted between his love and the straight stretch of road before them, a dream, a desire, a way to make 'always' official ran aground in his mind. “Let's get married Es.” They were already engaged but the words had left his mouth before he could put a stopper on them and he knew that she'd know what he meant by them, because apart from the odd word of 'wife' and 'husband' they had never truly talked about their marriage. But now, more than ever, he saw it fitting to find out for themselves that there could be a life after Ella. His azure eyes cast Alexis an anxious, sideways glance though and hoped she'd wholeheartedly agree with him, not think him rash in anyway.

 

[Alexis Richarde]

As much as Alexis loved Izaak, all she wanted to say to him was that she didn't want to be just okay. She wanted to be happy and a parent with her baby but that was not an option and it seemed more then okay wasn't either, so she said nothing but a reciprocation of love, "I love you too." Forcing a grim smile, Alexis put a hand on the nape of Izaak's neck and ran her fingers through his light brown hair and, with cheek in her voice, she said, "We're already doing that." Showing her hand that was decked with her beautiful engagement ring as she added, "Remember?" To be fair, since finding out about her pregnancy nothing had been said about their wedding or marriage and she still wanted to be his wife, she always would, but right now she wasn't sure if she could think about a wedding when she was just so lost and unhappy. There was just so much on her mind that she couldn't stomach planning a wedding, no matter the amount of help that her best friend Leah would give her and she hoped Izaak could understand that. But most certainly in the future she wanted to, or maybe if they didn't have to plan it she would be more then willing to have their wedding, like if she was fine with eloping and abandoning their friends and family, she would. But alas, Alexis knew that weddings were not for herself and her love, that was the marriage, the wedding was for the family and friends, namely the parents.

Alexis wanted a small wedding, it was so fitting to her life with Izaak in Sydney and it contrasted with what her parents had expected all her childhood for herself, Julia, Zach and Mariella. She had never wanted the big, Cinderella-like wedding dress and now there was nothing she wanted less, perhaps then to plan a wedding and she thought maybe she just might use a summer dress that she liked and when the time was right, they would go for it but right now, her heart was not focused on them as a couple.

"Besides, you need to make some male friends so poor Case doesn't have to wear a suit and be your best man," Alexis added with a snort of amusement. Izaak must be truly awful with other guys or girls were just delusional because she could not think of one guy that he was close with that did not include Fletcher, considering the last tiff she had heard Marcus, Clavell that is, had gotten into. To be fair, Alexis had never been great with making female friends so she understood why he had so many friends of the opposite sex and wasn't jealous.

A month after Ella's passing Alexis had told herself that she couldn't be a burden anymore and had gotten a job to bring some money into their home and now they were more financially ready for it but she was not, no where near ready because each morning she yearned to go to the nursery that she and Izaak had made in all neutral colours and to see her baby girl laying in her crib instead of just enjoying the time spent with her fiance in bed. "I want to... I just want to be happy when we do get married," she explained in a softer hue in her voice as if what she was saying was taboo, just as sharing her feelings with Izaak on the subject were. "We can't be in mourning, I won't allow it. But right now I - we - need to be. Does that sound reasonable?" she asked anxiously, looking from Izaak's eyes to the road ahead of them on their way to Byron Bay, that made her a tad more nervous for Alexis couldn't help but feel that they were outside of a comfort zone they called home. The safety of knowing that only a short walk away was Alexis' best friend was not there and neither was the knowledge of the land just as their hadn't been in Venice that fateful night... or morning.

 

[Izaak Finch]

A smile peeked through the darkness inside the car first as Izaak mused over how damn nice her fingers felt as they ran against the grain of his hair and then at the light humour she’d made from his question. “Oh baby, you crack me up.” He smirked teasingly over at his lover and yet in the starlight, one could see the adoration that filtered through his azure eyes and the deep kind of love he’d never rid himself of when she was around. Still his playful visage was kept amused as he took his hand back from Alexis’ leg and wrenched the car into the next gear but not without a groan and a shudder from the engine. It probably would have been a smart idea to get it serviced last week, to deem it road worthy for the miles it would surely depreciate over on the way to Byron. Leah had been hounding him about it, rattling off about ABS breaking and the installation of more sufficient airbags, making it clear that if Ella had been alive he would have done it immediately. It wasn’t as if he was never going to do it but he was a safe enough driver right? What were the odds of him getting in an accident?

With half a smile still lingering amusedly on his expression, Izaak rolled his bright eyes over at his lover as she jabbed him with a play on the distribution of gender in his friends. “Poor Case would be honoured to be my best man. Don’t go saying that kind of stuff Alexis, you’ll put ideas in her head.” With a wiggle of a finger in her direction and the arch of his eyebrows high on his forehead, Izaak laughed jovially for the simple fact that both he and Alexis knew it to be true. Casey and Izaak, they went together like peanut butter and jelly; they knew the other inside out and they loved the other something crazy. If she had asked him to be her maid of honour, Izaak would not have thought twice about agreeing despite how awful they both knew he’d be at the task of pulling together a wedding. But hey, it’s the thought that counts after all. “Besides,” He begun in a clear defence of himself as the tone of his voice tightened into one of a more serious nature. “Clavell’s already been lined up for the job.” Daring her to conclude otherwise, Izaak gave his love a quick glance sideways. Marcus was like the brother that Izaak had never had, his wingman, his drinking buddy, confidant, mentor (albeit, not the very best one) but above all his best mate. And though they had their moment of arrogant brawn and cockiness, they’d get over themselves eventually.

With his gaze lost somewhere ahead on the road and his head up and away with the clouds, Izaak fell into thought of the wedding they’d have and squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of being pinned into a tuxedo, seating arrangements, monstrous orders for food and catering. And then having to pay for it all only to stand up there at the altar before their friends and family and fall victim to his nerves as his mother sobbed endlessly in the front row. Would he forget his vows, mid-sentence? Would he fumble with the ring and drop it on the ground? Would he remember how to kiss his lover with all eyes gaping upon them as he was invited to seal their marriage? Izaak chewed down hard on his lower lip, clearly he hadn’t thought this through at all. And everything that Alexis was saying seemed level-headed and logical, only convincing him further that his leap of faith had not been so carefully calculated after all. Ella’s loss was still carved fresh and raw into them, a wedding was not exactly a way to rid themselves of such pain. “I know, I’m sorry.” He murmured softly and reached out to glove her ringed hand with his, caressing the diamond with a circular motion of his thumb. Even now as he looked over at her, he could still see a picture-perfect image of their daughter and how even then, three months premature and lifeless, she had looked so much like his love. “I don’t know... I just want to get the hell out of here.” And as they sped their way down the highway towards the beautiful piece of coastland, Izaak had hoped that the fresh air and the crystal waters would do a little to nudge the weary couple on their way.

“But when we do,” He announced over the song that was whisking romanticised melodies through the car, grinning as wildly as a man in love could as he squeezed Alexis’ hand. “We should have it on the beach, y’know just a small, summery kind of thing...” Pausing for thought, a laugh rushed up through Izaak’s chest only for him to continue on with its remnants still lingering in his voice. “Good luck convincing Leah though, she’s had us set up for a big white wedding for years now.” It was not a secret to anybody that his sister had always been a sucker for fairytales and romance, seeing as she had never gotten a bar of any of it until Fletcher had waltzed into her life. Izaak knew she was planning her own wedding at the moment but he had often caught the feeling that she had been planning his to Alexis for a lot longer, from the very first moment the best friends had met all those years ago. Those were the days. he thought to himself, a reminiscing smile behind the blue depth of his irises as he remembered the day they had first professed their love for one another in the winter both following his graduation and before her NEWT year. They had just been two teenagers dating back then, with no rush to grow up, no desire to get hitched and fall pregnant yet, if at all. Nothing more to think of other than the heat of his girlfriend’s kisses and the waves that had barrelled around their entwined bodies. Izaak barely recognised either of them back then, they had matured so much in just a few years that it were as if they were completely different people. And now here they were in the aftermath of their daughter’s passing and thinking over the life they planned to spend with one another. “You know what?” Izaak asked his love with a grin flashing all sorts of cheekiness and brilliance through the dark. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” Just to seal the deal he was sure she was already aware of, the young man took his eyes from the straight stretch of road ahead for just one moment and leant across the centre console to lovingly peck her soft, sweet lips.

It had only been a second, two at the most, that Izaak had distracted himself from the route ahead. But as he moved away from Alexis with that sparkle only she could ignite in his azure eyes, there was a burly kangaroo stretched up on its haunches just mere metres from the bonnet of the Chevrolet. Acting on an instinct that was too hasty to control, Izaak wrenched the steering wheel to the left in avoidance of the animal and heard the awful screech of rubber against bitumen as the car struggled to keep its own. Whether his heart was drumming so fast inside his chest that its pulses seemed to meld into one or whether it had just stopped altogether was lost on Izaak as he fought with the steering, trying to wrench the car back onto its course. But at one hundred kilometres an hour, control had long ago been lost. There was nothing left in it. He slammed his foot down hard on the brake pedal and hoped that it would stop the vehicle before it steamed over into the gums that lined the edge of the highway. But hoping played no such hand in freak situations such as these. The car barely slowed, only skidded along the tar as if it was slicked with ice. Steering its lethal speed was an impossibility now. “F*ck!” Izaak shouted, slamming down his foot on the brakes over and over again. But they were no safety standard ABS braking system, it was no use, they were all locked up and the age-old car was fast approaching the thick trunk of a gum tree. Izaak was sure now, his heart had stopped dead. The screaming tyres screeched the end into his ears, the Chevrolet’s body groaned in doom as it steered off the road and shook its passengers up like rag dolls inside, the grass was ripped from the nature strips, the gearstick wrenched into park in Izaak’s final bid to take control of the situation, his breath intensified and his legs shook at the mercy of the brakes. There was no choice but to grasp onto their prayers now and Izaak’s hand reached in desperation for Alexis’, holding it tightly within his own as he gathered his courage for the accident ahead.

It all happened so fast. The busted shards of glass sliced his cheeks as the car crashed forcefully into the trunk of the tree, the whiplash of inertia grabbed painfully at the muscles in his neck. But when it was all over, when the nightmarish journey had come to a horrific end, Izaak opened his eyes that he had squeezed shut somewhere amidst the sudden stop, there was only one concern that tore at his mind. It was not that his beloved car was as good as scrap metal, it was not the ache in his neck or the sting in his cheek, and it was definitely not his own state of mind. It was none of those things when the person that meant the most to him had still not spoken a word. With eyes so wide and fearful that the whites glistened eerily in the shadows, he shook her hand, limp and cold in his grasp. “Alexis.” He croaked in the smallest of voices, trying to rouse a reaction from her even though he had not yet seen her. But she gave him no response, her hand remaining lifeless within the warmth of his. “Alexis.” Came the choke of his broken voice again, pleading and begging for a sign, any sign, that would assure him of her health. But as his eyes, his timid blue eyes, moved slowly to meet her face, Izaak felt his heart accelerate to a dangerous pace. And then, it really did stop. “NO!”

 

[Alexis Richarde]

"Clavell, eh? Well heres hoping you won't go beating each other up at our wedding," Alexis said with a wiggle of her eyebrows before she was hit with the realization that one day soon they would wake up side-by-side as fiance and later that day she would fall asleep curled together with her husband. It was a wonderful thing and through the circus that had once and still was their relationship, she was amazed they had gotten this far. It had not been that long ago when she had told him that she couldn't ever trust him, when she had slapped him square in the face and when she had thought that she was in love with Zaire Adams. The thought of it all, it was so distant from the moment and the future they had planned that she couldn't help but let out a snort of amusement at the change and just how short a time period it had changed. And just as much as it was amusing, it was amazing and shocking all at the same time. "God I love you," she exhaled all in one, quiet breath as she watched her fiancé think in silence about what she could only assume was their wedding or marriage. It mattered not that Ella Mae was gone before she had come, she loved Izaak Jay Finch and one day she would get to show everyone else that it was as never-ending as she knew it to be but right now, she was not ready for it and neither was he.

Alexis hated that Izaak was apologizing for suggesting getting married so soon but she bit her tongue and looked out the window to the night's sky. Despite being a truly agnostic, atheist, or whatever the actual term for what she had claimed to be all her life Alexis Marie was one hundred percent certain that Ella, in all her innocent beauty was somewhere watching after her parents and making sure that they were safe, somehow. The thought made her smile, then frown and she smiled again, yet weakly, to her lover. "I know you do. I do too." Their hidden words were ones that only the pair understood and at that moment, Alexis took that to mean that he wanted the pain to be gone because they lived right outside of the salty ocean, he worked in the water, this could not be a purely surfing based trip and it wasn't. For a short bit, the couple would try to escape the forever lingering heart ache that their loss brought as well as seeing the nursery that she and Izaak were to learn everything there was to about being parents that only served as a reminder of what she had lost. Being in their home was painful and yet travelling was too, but the confused woman had accepted this offer and she was to go through with it because she had always loved the beauty of Byron Bay. But to say that she was to get anywhere closer to the water then the beach would be insanity for Alexis Richarde. She refused to step into a boat or into the water excluding her showers for that was how she had lost the possibility of having her bouncing baby girl. She was sure that Izaak thought her to be a nutter because of her problem with surf considering they met talking about competing against one another in a surfing but she couldn't stomach it yet.

Shaking off the increasingly dark, morbid thoughts Alexis looked towards her love as he read her earlier train of thought for their wedding. It was a wonder how two opposites sides of the same coin had so many similarities but those fifteen or so words showed just how well in tune they were as a couple. A small wedding was perfect for them, their closest family and friends were all that was needed, or wanted. It was an overwhelming thought to have just imagining the large wedding that her best friend had imagined for them. Her father, god bless him, would be on the same side as Leah, claiming that he would pay for every last thing including a large wedding hall in which five hundred of their closest friends would be seated alongside wizarding politicians that she had grown up knowing. It was all just too much. "I know, the day after I came back she attacked me with bridal magazines filled with the big, poofy wedding dresses. I told her that she was a wanker and at the time that stopped her at the time with it all." A small chortle at the expense of Leah's hopeless romantic nature was given and so was a smile at her best friend and one day sister-in-law. Oh the things that would have to be pulled through for Leah's wedding that was currently in the works as well. "My Dad might try and force some politicians on us, just a warning," she said, as she rolled her hazel eyes at the thought of some old man that she and Izaak barely knew coming to their wedding.

"I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you." Alexis' face pulled into the gentlest of smiles as she looked towards her fiance. Izaak was simply too sweet for words so as he leaned towards her for a kiss, she didn't say any variation of 'keep your eyes on the road' and soaked in the small kiss but she quickly regretted it when everything was moving too fast for her to register it all. The only thing she knew was that she was about to go face first into a tree with a car moving all too quickly. She let out a scream but it was too late, they had hit the tree and that was the last sound she would ever make again. Alexis Marie Richarde had died.

For years it had seemed like there was someone or something that had wanted this exactly to happen to her and it finally had. Only three months after the loss of her daughter and she had been killed by a large kangaroo standing where is shouldn't have. But the hidden truth was that her heart was too broken to move on any longer, this had been the excuse that her body and soul needed to leave Alexis lifeless in the passenger seat of the crushed Chevvy. With her strawberry blonde hair covering her face one would think that she was just taking a nap in a car that desperately needed repair because despite the obvious... health issue there was nothing wrong with her. No one would see any problems with her physicality just as there hadn't been any with Ella Mae Finch.

 

[Izaak Finch]

“ALEXIS!” There was not a murmur of response from her though inside the dark and crumpled Chevvy. Nothing else but a strangled wheeze of a mechanism inside the done and dusted engine, and the echoes of his cry reflecting off the shards of glittering glass that had pooled in his lap and rebounding off the twisted framework of the vehicle. There was not a ray of life left in her, not a breath or a word, and never again a smile or a kiss reserved just for his lips alone. But Izaak battled through all the blaring signs he had been trained to recognise as a life too late to save, because then it might just be too late to salvage his own. Her name trembled from his lips once more, spoken as if it had the potential to slice his throat apart; the quieter it was, the less choked pain on his vocal chords. But it wasn’t just her name anymore, it was the very sound of Izaak’s heart falling apart. His hand shook violently as he raised it to brush the hair back from her ghostly face. It was hardly possible to believe that that very same one, broad of palm and lengthy of finger, had but earlier that evening run its affectionate course down the length of her body and then scooped up her beautiful face, confident and comfortable in its actions, to leave her lips angled into their kisses. It was even harder to believe still, on Izaak’s part, that it would never have the chance to do that again.

Her skin felt like marble beneath his wishing and wanting fingers; smooth, flawless and yet so shockingly cold that it was enough to entice the tears that had been welling in his eyes into a rushed and reckless tumble down his cheeks. “Wake up Es, we need to go home.” Croaked Izaak through the sobs that had now consumed him, shuddering through his entire body like nothing else he had ever felt before. His hand, that very same one, fell to her petite shoulder and kneaded it with a grasp so tight that if it had been possible, it would have been the very thing to revive her. And yet Izaak refused to believe this wasn’t curable, so he shook his love’s limp frame in a sullen attempt to bring her back from this never-ending slumber. For a moment she seemed alive, just like their daughter’s heart had when the healers had tried their efforts at shocking her back to life. But like Ella, her body’s response to his shakes was all just cruelly deceptive. “Wake up.” Two octaves higher and hysterical beyond all means of calming down, his voice pierced through the shadows that had befallen the tragic accident, blacker than the darkness itself. But it was not enough, it would never be enough.

The whites of Izaak’s eyes shone in a bittersweet beauty there beneath the faint light of the moon. His tears caught its light and reflected it back onto the world as if they served some greater purpose in life. But in reality they were not anything but reflective of his gut-wrenching despair. And as he watched his love, his still and lifeless love, the feeling seemed to double upon itself by the passing seconds. Alexis Marie Richarde was dead. The realisation numbed Izaak to his very core. The one true love of his life was dead and there was not a person on earth he could blame for her sudden departure but himself. The cries tore through Izaak Jay as he buried himself into her pulseless neck, hugged her body closer to his and let his frantic tears wash down to soak the material of the shirt she had been wearing. He had ruined it all, screwed his entire life over, because what life without her was a life worth living? She wouldn’t be there in the morning, or when he came home hungry on his break from work. Nor would she be kissing him hello in the afternoon or falling into bed with him as the night took its hold. His shoulders shook harder, the tears fell heavier, his gasping sobs intensified; he wished the accident had killed him too. Because up there somewhere, as he peeked up at the starry sky from the crook of her cold neck, were his two precious girls; mother and daughter reunited and together as they were always meant to be. But where in this hellish world did that leave him?

The whisk of tyres behind them grew closer, the soft purr of a sedan ran higher until Izaak saw the headlights in the reflection of the rearview mirror. Dazed and desperate, he wrenched open the driver side door but did not have the motivation to keep himself upright. In a stumble he was on the ground, the gravel grazing his knees as they knocked harshly upon it whilst his fingers combed angrily through the earth. “Help!” He screamed, begged, yelled for the car to stop but it sped past the nightmare taking place. Ignorant of the fact that the twenty-one year old had just lost the other half of his heart somewhere up in heaven or that it hurt like a f*cker. He should have just thrown himself out in front of its speeding wheels, that was really the best help the driver could have given him. With the initial exception; the plume of smoke that curled from the bonnet of his car though seemed to attract oncoming motorists like vultures to a carcass. The flung themselves out of their suave SUVs, their cute little supermini’s. They called 000 and tried to coax a word out of Izaak. But it was not until the police arrived that he was finally budged from his hyperventilation on the roadside. The officer, it seemed had a number of questions for him as if this was all just another day on the job, while her partner spoke in exclusion to the paramedics that had arrived on the scene. But Izaak didn’t want to give a statement, he didn’t want to talk about the arrangements of his Chevrolet, he definitely did not want to go back to the station with him. All he wanted and would ever want for the rest of his hopefully short and painless life, was his fiancée back.

It was not to say that he wasn’t cooperative, just as devastated and monosyllabic as any young man would be should he have to experience such trauma. But when his raw red azure eyes caught sight of the stretcher, the body on top of it cloaked beneath a white sheet, there was not a word or a reassurance, a smile or a gesture that would ever possess the capability of calming. “Alexis!” Izaak screamed hoarsely out into the pains of the night and darted from the police car, the tears spilling down his cheeks afresh as he watched her body get wheeled from the wreckage. It was exactly the kind of thing you saw on the evening news, the very one that panged you with sympathy for a moment before you carried on normally with your perfected lives. But it became an entirely different story when it was your fiancée beneath that sheet and your fault that she was cloaked in it. In between the tears that filled him, Izaak’s azure gaze caught a glimpse of something too extravagant to be seen in that stretcher. A glimmer in the moonlight, a sparkle in the starlight. And only when the paramedics tucked it away beneath the sheet did Izaak understand the beauty it beheld. It had been her left hand, decked with the engagement ring he had proposed to her with. “NO!” It was then that Izaak lost himself completely, slumped into an inconsolable, blubbering, screaming mess with no hope of being fished out of its deathly grasp by anybody. That was his fiancée being jerked around on that stretched as she was driven to the morgue to be shoved into one of those cold, unforgiving rooms. That was his heart, his life, his love, his reason for being, cold and dead there beneath that sheet.

The crash would feature on the next evening’s news, a brief mention, a sentence or two. It would steal fifty or so words in the Sydney newspaper. Just another common accident. Another number added to the holidays death toll on the roads. But it’s absurdity to the wizarding world would rock their headlines. The prophet would fuss over it for weeks, Pierre Richarde’s daughter dead, a front page spread. Friends and family, they’d all try and talk Izaak into a psychologist, and whisper about suicide watch when they thought he wasn’t listening. They would pity, but they would never know. They would never know the degree of everything that Alexis had been to Izaak Jay Finch.


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“END OF THREAD”​

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