I remember looking at the lights, the red and black spectacular that haunts my sleep as much as her face does, and they looked dimmer. Sam told me that it wasn’t just me, that I’m not crazy. It seems like we all look at the Moulin Rouge a little bit differently now.
It’s weird how I thought life would stop in the city, as it as for me, but it still races on like nothing happened. People still bustle around, in and out of the Moulin Rouge to spend all their day’s spendings, and out again before their wives wonder where they’ve been. Spite the hurt that I know he feels for the girl he considered a daughter, or at least I hope since I know she considered him like a father, Will Schuester parades around his circus tent as if a tragedy didn’t happen. As if the greatest star the Moulin Rouge had ever known didn’t breath her very last breath, center stage, in my arms at the witness to all whom worked within those walls. It still went on. I should be surprised, but I am not. The city does not sleep for anyone, especially not Kitty Wilde. It was a circular train of events, you see. I loved Kitty and Kitty loved the city, but in the end..the city couldn’t have cared less of Kitty. She was one person among millions and billions that will leave Manhattan without time stopping. Why would her life be so much different?
Because it was and, for me and hopefully whomever is reading this, it will. At least for a brief moment in time, you will understand for the tiniest of moments how being present for Kitty Wilde’s last breath was like taking my last breath as well. Only difference between mine and hers is I’m forced to move on with this hollow feeling in my chest.
Katherine Wilde was born to her parents, Edith and Walter Wilde, on December 1st, 1991 in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. Katherine grew up with a humble upbringing, her parents both being staples in the local church community as well as her father being involved in running for town mayor. They lived in a decent sized brick house not far from their town square, enough for her, her parents and any future children that the Wilde’s might have. It wasn’t much but to Katherine, it was her perfect slice of life. She was happy, the quiet but kind choir girl with a smile that made even the saddest of men smile. It was only until she got older, around the age of twelve, that things in Katherine’s perfect little life started to change. Katherine’s mother had been trying to have a second child for years at that point but with no success. The doctors couldn’t figure out what it was until they found out that Edith was terminally ill. It was a shock to the pristine Wilde household, something that they couldn’t bounce back from. Katherine saw her mother fall into a deep depression and her father turn to alcohol. She never thought her once cherished parents would end up this way. Even worse was as Katherine approached eighteen, her father made a point that the girl go out and make something of herself. Lawyer, doctor, teacher, something of substance. But that’s not what she wanted. Katherine wanted the stage, she wanted the millions, she wanted to be loved and cared for like her parents no longer did for her. Upon seeing her world crumbling, the day she turned eighteen, Katherine left her home and everything behind for the city. For a place where she would be appreciated for her talent and maybe when she made it, she could come back to get a doctor for her mother. To maybe fix what had been broken. In the city, Katherine was a starry eyed, simple but beautiful girl with a wit about her that drew people toward her. Her naivety made her think it would be easy but after a while, Katherine saw that it would be anything but. Running out of money, she stumbled upon the Moulin Rouge, thinking it could just be a temporary time to get a girl some money. Instead it became her livelihood. The once quiet, sweet and maybe even shy girl was now fiery, a vixen to some, a woman for hire to everyone who stepped foot into the club. The world had always been against her so now Kitty was against it. Life had only given her a beautiful face, alluring charm, heart ache and an illness she can’t escape. Just like her mother. Just another girl who wishes for too much only to have to settle for less.
I almost felt guilty reading through her paperwork, journal entries throughout the years, and other various documents that she kept that somewhat pinned together the story. I halfway expected for Kitty to eventually run up behind me to claw the papers out of my hands, claiming something about how I already knew all I needed to know about her. It was true, no doubt. I didn’t need Katherine. I had Kitty.
Most of her things, Will donated. He insisted to donate, versus giving Kitty’s belongings away to some of the younger girls of the Moulin Rouge. We both had to agree that Kitty herself would have hated the idea of giving her things to them, making some sort of comment about how they needed to work for their things like she did hers and that they’d stretch out her clothes. The thought of her sass immediately turned our hearts sour and the subject was changed. I took a few select items, small pieces of jewelry that I knew she favored over others and a picture of us she’d had stored behind her pillow case. Even until the end, she was careful.
With no immediate family, besides Will, he made the decision to cremate her. Weirdly enough, it is apparently the way everyone is doing it these days. Coffins are expensive and we had an unplanned funeral when she died in front of everyone she’d ever cared about. I hated the thought of burning her, her flesh and beautiful being becoming ash, but ash over corroding. Somehow, that seems like what Kitty would have wanted.
The urn must’ve cost a good bit of money but Will won’t say. For such an elaborate guy, he does have a softer side that not many see. Maybe his grief just got the best of him. The base is small, growing large towards the top. It is black and red, not surprising, with a few select diamonds around the middle. Always a Sparkling Diamond.
I didn’t return to my apartment, even after all that happened. The days blended together, especially the ones directly after it all happened, but from what I recollect I spent most of them in Artie, Sam, and Unique’s place. Even until my very last day, they made sure I made it through the night. I don’t think they would have let me leave if they thought I wouldn’t.
It never hit me, even as I hugged them all goodbye, that I was leaving the city for good. The hugs and talk back and forth seemed empty, as if my thoughts and body had already checked out of the life and year that life in Manhattan had presented to me. I had asked for a story and inspiration, but never, in a million years, did I expect the one I was given. A hug to Sam, a handshake to Artie, a nod to Will and Marley, and a sweep of emotion from Unique. ‘Take care of her,’ she says. All I can do is shake my head to make sure the emotion stays in my chest as it should. Over expressways, streets, roads, and highways, I exit New York. Away from it all, I take her. Like we were always meant to do. I’d told her we can leave. That we’d go somewhere else..anywhere else. As long as we're together.
I have her buckled in, strapped down by a seat belt riding shotgun, as if to keep her safe. It dawned on me the moment I had put the seatbelt around ironic it was, but nevertheless I did it.
It was three days, past cities and towns a blur that I drove through Ohio. Lima is about midway through the state but, not even then was that enough to make me want to stop. Ohio is not a home, at least to me. I have parents there and, spite their lack of communication, I hope that they read this and that they are well. The high school, the college experiences, and my time as a football player turned romanticized writer is long gone. Now...now is something I do not know.
Kitty saved me. In so many ways that a person can be saved and, for that, I owe her more than I can ever give her. I can take her places she spoke of, in hopes of some sort of crappy redemption that even I know that will never come. The coast..California..the mountains, the sea, the skylines, the shores, the desert, who knows? Just because our story ends at the end of this page doesn’t mean mine does. I know that is what she wants, even if most days, it isn’t what I want.
I hope you liked our story, but it is okay if you didn’t. It doesn’t matter if you liked it or not, but just that I did this one thing for her. Her death will always mean something because, above all things, she believed in me and this story more than the amount of words that finish up this adventure-like tale. Through this story and the pages, Kitty stays alive, dancing, singing, and believing. She stays forever young. It may not have been luxurious or glamorous, but it was ours. It was a year that will stay with me until my last breath and, as Kitty’s story goes, it could be today or even tomorrow. For now, I just go where the wind blows me. I stay a penniless writer.
This story was about time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But above all things, a story about love. A love that will live forever.
In the part of her soul that she’d rediscovered after all of this time, Kitty wanted to believe that Ryder was right. Given just a moment longer and the doctor would appear to solve the problem. An elixir, a pill, anything would take away Kitty’s illness like it never existed to begin with. There was a chance, a possibility of course, but life was never so beautifully crafted though, was it? Medicine wasn’t magic and magic didn’t exist. As humans, we could only grasp the concept of something magical, that felt out of this world, but miracles rarely happened in the form you expected yourself to need them in. In a cosmic sense, finding love like Kitty and Ryder shared was a miracle but even something that felt like the embodiment of magic, wouldn’t produce what they needed in that moment. Time was fleeting but at one time, Kitty felt like she was timeless. Her reign would be endless and yet now, it was fading away, slowly at first but now at a rapid fire pace. A pace where she had little to hold onto but still kept reaching for the edge of the ledge to grab onto. She gave a slow shake of her head, her mouth dry and making her words come out like sandpaper against her tongue.
"You have to.”
It was the weakest statement she had perhaps made in her entire life but death makes us equal parts strong and weak. It lifts us up to a higher sense of self and yet tears us down until we realize we’re only human. We all end. We all die.
Even for someone like Kitty, who had always imagined that she was the strongest force the world could be reckoned with, it was not something you escaped from once it chose you. It was clear in her existence, in every word she ever spoke that Kitty was a different kind of person. But now, when every breath felt like a nail in her coffin, it was made clear that death made no concessions for beauty. It gave no second chances to talent or anger or strength and it certainly didn’t give in to love. The world wouldn’t stop turning the moment that Kitty Wilde died, just like the heart in Ryder’s chest would still beat.
She slowly rode a single pale hand to press to his chest, feeling the thudding of his heart crashing against his rib cage. Even his body felt cold against her shivering fingers and it made the entire scene much more ominous. His warmth could no longer break through the ice that she had become but for a very different reason than it used to be. He had touched her heart and not even the world’s greatest illness would ever turn it frigid again. Her hand slid upwards, caressing every inch of his skin on her way up. It was her own mental map of him, to remember every part of him that she had loved.
"Tell our story, Ryder."
She muttered the words softly as she peered up at him through eyes lined with overflowing tears, so clear they appeared to be glass. It was the only part of her that still held real life in them while the rest of her slowly crumbled into oblivion. Kitty saw the slow drag of his head, the refusal to accept his reality for what it was, and she protested right back at him. Just like she always had.
"Yes. Promise me."
Her hand rose up from his collarbone to his cheek, guiding his eyes to her. She had lost so much already. The opportunity to be a star, to be a mother, to be a wife. She had lost the promise of a future where she could have it all and Kitty wouldn’t let him do the same thing. Not because of her. Not because love had played a game with both of them.
"Promise me."
The frail blonde continued to plead with him, nodding slowly as tears rolled down her cheeks. Ryder’s power was not Kitty. His power was his words. Just like hers. They had existed together once in a song and Kitty knew that Ryder would put them back together again in the same way. His force of will wouldn’t let him exist in any other form or with any other ending. His fate had aligned with hers and he was destined to follow along, though slower to the end then she had been. And even though, Kitty had long lost faith in God or in any deity, part of her secretly hoped they’d meet again somehow. Not only as mere memories but as two souls that were forever tethered to each other by a force that the earth couldn’t control. It was the one thing they still had power over and she wished for it to be real. For dreams to still exist past death. As Kitty saw Ryder slowly concede to her, she nodded once more and spoke again. She spoke of something that she knew would stick with him, long past the grief and the loss she was forced to leave him with.
"That way, I’ll always be with you.”
She smiled with the little energy she had left and carefully lifted her weakened head to move closer to his. Her lips, though cold and void of color, gingerly pressed to his. The tears from both of their faces washed onto the other’s body as she felt the love course from his lips to hers, handing over the rest of her vitality to him. It was all she had left to give him and it would never feel like enough. It wasn’t the scene that came at the end of a fairytale. It was a promise muddled with a goodbye. It was the seal to something Kitty wouldn’t be able to solidify for him anymore. As she slowly pulled away from him, she felt a shiver run up her spine and the air in the room suddenly felt heavy. It was like breathing in smoke, a slow and steady burn of oxygen.
Kitty inhaled sharply to feel the fill of her lungs again, a continuing push against the flood that would stop her breathing but this time, it came up short. Her eyes widened in shock and she gasped out, louder than the times prior. As she stared up at the darkened stage ceiling, Kitty saw the edges of her world cave in. The lights became dim until they were mere flickers. She couldn’t feel the floor beneath her body or Ryder’s tears sliding along her neck. It felt almost like she was falling asleep, when the world faded before you even knew it was happening but this time, Kitty knew she wouldn’t wake up. She wanted to beg, to plead for a moment more, a second where she could look into his eyes and remember that the world was still beautiful even when it was taking her very life away. But fate, no matter which path she sends you on, is a cruel mistress. Fate can take away whatever it wants with no regard for the disaster left in its wake. As the water she felt drowned in finally consumed her and blocked the last colors of her world from view, Kitty’s fingertips that pressed into Ryder’s arms slowly gave way and fell slumped to her sides. The heart that tried so hard to stay alive, that existed so much more in totality in her last months of life, beated in her chest for the last time.
Death wasn’t painful. Not in itself. It wasn’t a deep agony that had her screaming out in pain. The aftermath is what would cut deep in the souls of everyone who had ever crossed her path. It was the pain of a life cut short. A path carved out for you by forces out of your control and you as a mere human are forced to bend to. The fact that Kitty Wilde, young, talented, and in love, with the world at her very feet only moments before, was robbed of that - that would torture her soul in the afterlife. Not the blood or the aching in her lungs but the moment the lights went out on her life, she could no longer feel much of anything. It was a darkened sky, an endless abyss, and if she could hope for anything, she would hope the other side was beautiful. That heaven was everything it was made out to be and that from its cloudy shores, she’d be able to see him and help him know that everything was going to be alright. Her love would still permeate his skin even though hers had long turned cold. His mind would still hold all of their memories even though she had lost them. Kitty would still exist in Ryder even long after the crowd dissipated and her body turned to ashes. She would exist in him, survive in him and the pages of every word he would continue to write, long after the curtain dropped on the Moulin Rouge for the very last time.
Ryder felt every sharpened movement Kitty’s trembling fingertips made upon his chest. Kitty was a character that stopped herself from being perceived as flawed and, even as she laid on the wooden floor in her most vulnerable state, Ryder knew she would still want to be seen among their peering friends as a champion. His hand cupped her frigid hand on his chest, holding it tight to prevent her shaking. It didn’t take much for her hand to slide its way, ever so familiar-like, up his chest to the warmth of his wet cheeks in which his own tears had appeared and would dare not leave him. Who was he to cry in her hour of need?
Tell their story.
Kitty’s words slurred into his sloppy, heartbreaking thoughts that clouded his mind and his jaw instantly began to wobble in defeat. This was truly a goodbye, in an ever so damned good Kitty Wilde fashion. Even when he dared not to believe in himself, the show he’d written and seen performed, and only just now stood in the spotlight to sing the words he’d written, Kitty was still his greatest supporter. How it had happened, how one person was so internally connected to every part of him, Ryder would never understand. He had yearned for such a love and yet, even when he’d wanted his written words to reflect into a person, he had no true idea what exactly that would call of him. He hadn’t the slightest recollection of what love was before setting eyes on Kitty Wilde, the ever daring, delectable, and ultimately destructible love of his life. Meeting her was fate, becoming her friend was a choice, but falling in love with Kitty was...well beyond his control. Ryder Lynn was nothing abnormal. A common young man, if that, with common thoughts and had led a somewhat common life before moving to New York. There are, so far, nothing to monument Ryder’s time on Earth and his name would eventually be forgotten and less remembered by anyone and everyone. No matter the lack of success or even the lack of whatever it is that Ryder’s life will become beyond those very moments, Ryder was aware of one very small thing. Ryder had loved. He’d loved another with all my heart and soul, this would be enough.
With that, however, meant the very thought of a life without Kitty seemed completely, and utterly, unbearable.
“I promise.”
His words were quivers and wheezes as he pushed the words from somewhere deep in his chest. His body rose up and down ferociously, his eyes blinking over and over again to keep his gaze directed on her. He met her halfway as she struggled to bring herself to his lips. His lips caressed around hers, his eyes closing for the briefest of moments, told him that everything would be alright. Kitty Wilde, deceiving his emotions yet again. She had never failed to have such a hold on him and his toyed heart. Forever it would be so. Bringing his mouth away, just enough to settle his eyes back onto her, Ryder’s fingers drew a line under the whitened lips he’d just kissed.
“I promise, Kitty, but I can’t. Don’t make me.”
Of course Ryder would promise her. He’d promise her the world if it would save her, though it wasn’t the case. He could hardly breath and yet he knew it would be worse when that finality came over her. He wanted to stop it. He wanted to beg and plead and shout to the stars to make whatever invisible force that he had been blind of stop its tug on her and yet..Ryder knew. He knew that he needed to soak up every second the best he could. If he misses any of them, his heart would not be able to bear out.
“I can’t do this without...without..”
Ryder had never seen anyone die before. In the various upon various movies he’d watched, he’d seen time and time again inevitable dramatic death scene where there seemed to be a good view moments where it was obvious the character was dying just as the sad music began to play. This, however, was not the case. He’d been mid plead, ready to spill his heart out as he’d done time and time again. It was one of the numerous things he’d loved about Kitty. Spite the rolling of her eyes and the joked annoyance that showed when he became emotional about how he felt about her, she still let him do it..except that very last time. He’d seen the switch in her eyes, as if someone had reached behind her back and flipped an invisible switch. The tears that had been resting in her eyes fluttered down her cheeks as if whatever was holding them back had stopped and the light was immediately gone. All at once, she was gone.
“Kitty.”
His voice was low, curious and knowing all at the same time, as he lightly shook her shoulders, as if she was staring off at something and not paying attention to him. Ryder thought he knew Kitty well and had seen every facial expression she’d had to offer..but that one was not one he’d ever seen. Her face was unexpressed and her eyes had remained opened, as if still ready to listen to what speel he’d been digging up inside for her to hear, and now it was absolutely too late.
He couldn’t breathe.
It was as if, all in the matter of the realization stabbing him straight into his chest, Ryder’s panicked breaths turned into gasps of any sort of air. His body heaved and shook, causing her lifeless one to move with him. He pulled her close to him, pulling her face into his neck, his head shaking back and forth over and over again as if he was on repeat. He probably repeated the action over a million times, if he had any recollection at all.
“No. Oh, God. No.”
The emotion shook his whole body, as if what he was feeling was far too much for his body as he was preparing to explode. He wanted to. He’d rather be gone to feel this pit that was quick to carve through his skin and into every nerve in his body. It was unbearable and yet the closer he held Kitty’s lifeless body to his, he felt no movement but his own. Breathe, Kitty, breathe.
All at once, a cry broke from his chest as he fell backwards, pulling Kitty with him as he landed in a sitting position. Pulling her gently, into his lap, he rocked her back and forth as if she was an infant that he’d just put down for a nap. As if she was going to wake in a matter of moments.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
He tasted vile as he spoke, vomit rising and he felt as if he’d be sick. Spite it, however, Ryder dared not let go of the body he held in his arms. He held her as if there was some sort of hope that she would wake up and kiss his lips, as if the last few moments had been nothing but a dream.
At what hour, at what moment, he’d felt a hand graze his shoulder and he was quick to pull away.
“Don’t touch me!”
He heard Will’s voice, sharp and booming, curse at whomever it was that had dared to stir Ryder in his moment of purest grief. After then, however, Ryder was unable to recollect anything other than his grief. He had forever to do so and that...was the thought that killed him more than Kitty’s memory.
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