A/n: Many thanks to my one reviewer.

Chapter 2: The Other Man

Dylan watched as the director of the funeral parlor lowered the coffin into the grave. Most of their relatives had already paid their respects and gone. He was the only one left.

Marianne Kensington was a beautiful young woman who taught as an elementary teacher at a public school. She was well-loved by both her students and her co-workers. Her cheerful disposition and kind nature always made people feel at ease. This is what attracted me to her. The day we first met she was polite but honest. She did not want to marry me and I understood. I also shared the same sentiment but as I grew to know her I fell in love. I fell in love with her shy smile, the way she would always trace a circle on the palm of her hand when she was nervous and the fact that she would always say she had two left feet when she danced gracefully.

She fell in love with me too. She said that it wasn’t my talent but my love for music that she admired. An endless passion that she said she only saw in me, in my eyes, whenever I played or looked at her. I loved her and she loved me. We married December 15, 2005 in a simple church wedding witnessed by our closest family and friends. We lived together happily for a year until it came. The cancer spread quickly and efficiently after a month she was already too ill to teach, another two and several chemotherapy sessions she became bedridden and after three more she died.

“I wish you could stay. I wish you could stay for a little more,” I told her as I held her hand in the hospital. She was pale and thin. She had lost all her hair from the chemotherapy. She can no longer dance, her smiles were always weak and seemed to tire her. The only thing she still did now that she used to do before was to trace circles on her palm. “Don’t be nervous. Everything’s going to be alright.”

“Promise me. Promise that you’ll still live. Do it for me. I need you to stay strong when I’m gone.”

“Don’t say that. You’re going to be okay. The doctor said that the chemo seems to be working now,” I held her hand tightly.

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” I replied. She smiled and stopped tracing a circle on her palm.

“I’m not afraid anymore,” she replied. She turned her head and looked at the other side. After a second her hand fell limp and the monitor started beeping rapidly.

I only had her for a while. Our dreams we haven’t even fulfilled them yet. We talked about getting pregnant and having kids. Moving to another city and raising them there. She was going back to school and I was going to become a renowned pianist but all that’s a memory now. She is never coming back. We are never going to have our own family.

It has been two years since her death. I kept my promise and became a renowned pianist. However, I still haven’t met anyone I loved as much as her. I didn’t think I ever would until I met her.