I get this question... a lot.
"What happened to you?"
"Why did you write Breathe Series?"
Well... I guess it's time for me to break it down. I've always been a writer, that's no secret. I've always had an active imagination - that isn't a secret either but there is something deeper that drove me to write the series. And that something is...
Death.
It's just that simple. Someone I love... died. He did something that he promised he wouldn't do and that was leave me too soon. I was just a kid when I met him; 15 years old. I didn't think he would become the best thing I needed and the worst thing for me to live without. He was four years older than me and in my parents eyes, that was too old but I didn't care. I needed him, a part of me craved to learn more about him.
What was it about him?
​​He was witty, charming, so kind but... arrogant (as they all are... Am I right, ladies?). I could get lost in his deep brown eyes, that immaculate smile. He was perfect. Every night, I would sneak to call him, tucking the phone under my face just right so that if mom came into the room, she wouldn't see my disobedience. We would talk about absolutely nothing but being there with him meant absolutely everything. I needed him.
I fell in love with him soon enough, allowing him to break every piece of my soul and hand it back to me in increments, like I was just a few payments on a house that he didn't want anymore. Somehow I figured he wouldn't want me, love me, cherish who I was. I was too young for him, naive even. Still, he remained my best friend once the heartache dwindled away. I still loved him... probably always will love him.
I was supposed to call him one night before he passed. I was supposed to tell him that I still loved him and that all I could think about was him. The way he spoke words to my aching spirit, the way I imagined a life with him, the way he asked me to kiss him on the stairwell in a hotel we were in for a church convention (I know, we were a bit fresh back in those times). I still needed him in my life but somehow, I knew that I deserved better. His name alone could make me weak in the knees, could make my world stop spinning, my head would fly clean off my neck if I could just see him... one... last... time... I became so addicted to his being, his smoothness, the essence of a man I barely even knew, let alone, felt. He still had the control to make my spine tingle, my heart dance, my stomach to fall from the very pit of me. He had to be my soulmate. Had to be....
What's this?
I asked myself as I stared blankly into the phone, watching the heart wrenching posts on Facebook about him.
What. Is. This?
Someone please, tell me what this is. This isn't real. This can't be real... But it was. It was like someone had snatched my soul again, except this time, no one gave it back in pieces, or increments, in fact, no one gave it back at all. His death was the death of me, depleting me of all air. I couldn't breathe without him. What was this life without the person who completed me, although he stole the very best parts of me? What was this world without a heart as beautiful as my soulmate's? My soul... mate... My soul.
What happened?
The answer too simple. He happened.
But the funny thing about Death is that it has a crooked way of showing you how to appreciate life.
I had never been so close to Death before, so close to practically touch it. There I was, staring into the lifeless body of a man who couldn't absorb my love.
It took time, a lot of time actually, to get over it all but Death still drove me to want more out of life. I felt motivated to finish what I had started, to complete a series based on love and death and fear but also happiness and beauty and being empowered as a woman; a series about moving on with life because Death could never have the power over me.
Death motivated me to love again. Sounds ridiculous, but it did. I felt the need to snuggle up close to another body and love that person with every breath I took because then I knew, Death could never part us. Death could never intervene and snatch either of us away. Death could never beat the power of love because as long as I loved him, he would forever reign.