She stares up at the cold, cold sky, and remembers. The trees are dead, branches reaching out in longing for light in this darkness. Her breath is her sadness, seen only outside where everything is cold.
"Don't forget me!" He says, laughing, smiling, kissing her hand. He's glowing in the firelight, and in his eyes, so is she.
"How could I? You haven't even left yet!" she replies, pushing on his arm lightly. "Go on, then. The sooner you leave, the sooner I can start the party."
"You're having a party without me?" He pouted, and she blushes while laughing, the image carving itself into her mind.
"I'm just kidding. Go on, you really need to leave now." She doesn't have to say she hadn't meant it, but does anyway because somewhere inside her, she's afraid he can't tell.
"So eager to see me off? Three days is a long time, you know. I bet you miss me already."
"Off with you!" She laughed again, her laughter bells ringing in their ears. He stuck out his tongue at her, and they exchanged "I love you!"'s in the hallway for all the world to hear.
What he didn't know was that she had been missing him. Her heart ached as her tears fell. He never came back to her, only the memory. She shivered from the cold. Everything seems so much colder to her now.
February
He left her a journal. No, not left; gave. He wrote in it almost daily, never letting her see, and her eventually she stopped asking if she could. If she had wanted to, she could open it now. He forgot it on the table. maybe leaving it jinxed him, she wonders She hates the journal for knowing him better than she did. She wants to burn it. She wants to shred it. But more than any of that, she wants to read it.
"Oh, come on. Just one little peak?" she begged, reaching for the journal. He swatted her hand away.
"Nope. You can't read ANYTHING in here, even when I die." He grinned cheekily at her as she sulked, then faltered as she looked away, hurt.
"You don't trust me?" she asked, her eyes filling with tears. He sighed.
"I do, it's just that…" She was still looking at him, and he couldn't say anything. "Tell you what. When I die, you can read every entry in it as much as you want." He said. What she didn't know was that he wanted her to read it, eventually. What she didn't know was that, at that moment, he just couldn't.
Her eyes flickered to the journal. "You can read it as much as you want…" She almost opened to the first page, but knew that now, even though she was allowed to read it, she was the one not ready.
Every night, she pulled it out from her bedside table, thinking, "Is today the day?"
And every night, she put it back, telling herself it wasn't. he's not dead. She won't let him be.
March
She almost wishes it were winter again, just so she wouldn't have to see the love. The pink in the flowers mocks her; it seems everyone, even that flower, is more alive than her. But her soul is weighed down by longing and grief, and she won't let herself forget him. She stares at his picture every night as she tries to fall asleep, but really, she can't fall asleep with him there. she cries because she knows he isn't
"Spring cleaning sale!" all the signs say, and the hustle and bustle of uncaring others forces her into the shop. It's fragrant, selling specialty shampoos, lotions and candles. She would have left immediately if a salesperson hadn't greeted her enthusiastically and handed her a free sample. She pretends she is interested in the products for a few minutes, enough to satisfy watching eyes, then stops before she leaves. A whiff of something she knows but doesn't is in her nose. The bottle stands out from the others in her eyes, and before she knows what she's doing, she's walking back home, the bottle in her bag.
Immediately, she jumps into the shower as her apartment door clicks shut. The scalding water makes her feel vindicated, and the scent is intoxicating as she applies it. She steps out of the bathroom renewed, steam pouring out from behind her like a movie. But then she sees his picture, him smiling at her forever.
"I love how you smell." He says, raking his hands through her hair, and she melts into him. "Whenever I think of you, the first thing I remember is always how you smell."
She showers again, with the shampoo he loves, and she hides the other bottle in a closet, afraid for a minute he couldn't remember her. She never thinks of it again, and eventually, forgets it's even there.
she stares at the journal and wonders, but really, doesn't want to know
April
Her boss, smiling, asks her to come in at the end of the day to "talk". She nods in recognition, but shows no other signs of acknowledgement, and soon, her boss shows herself out. Her work has been above excellent, beating only her previous effort. With him gone, she puts herself into everything and nothing. She is the employee that everyone praises and nobody knows; month by month, her superiors raise their eyebrows as they note her progress, and she just keeps moving up and up.
It was another promotion, apparently, and she leaves with a flat "Thank you." She leaves to go home, where she heats up leftovers and stares at the walls that comfort and crush her with Him.
She graduates with full honors, and his face is beaming as he tells his parents. She is blushing, but that just makes him happier. He thinks she is beautiful all the time, but most especially when she's blushing. And smiling. She reminds him of how well he did, too, but he laughs and puts his arm around her. He did well thanks to her, she knew it the whole time, but hearing him say so and knowing he knew it too made her swell with pride, as if he had said she had taught the grass to grow or fire to warm. In that way that he does, he says just enough and not enough for her to understand and for no one else to. She feels they are sharing a secret when he does this, a sort of ritual dance that only they know. And she puts on her dancing shoes as they waltz.
she wants to read what he wrote for that day, but the journal is almost as frightening as his grave
May
In May, her work slips. She is always tired and feels sick. No one else knows it, but May is the best and worst month for her. May was when he said "I love you" for the very first time, making her smile and cry. he was the only person she ever said it back to. A different May, but May all the same, was when he offered her his heart. They were married in May. she leaves her ring on the bedside table, and every year she looks at it, but never puts it back on.
In another May they both cried, because they had been trying so hard and had been so gentle with it, but came to the hospital and the doctor told them the baby was born dead.
He came home, slammed the door, punched the wall and cried. She watched, her grief temporarily stopped, because it was only the second time she had ever seen him cry. at his father's funeral, she stayed with him for a long time after everyone else had left. He punched the wall again and again, sliding to the floor. And she looked down at her feet to see her tears on the floor. She reached up to her face and realized she had been crying too. She slid down to the floor beside him, and they held each other, crying late into the night. But, later still, she stood and offered him her hand. He stared into her eyes, his own so sad yet loving, so vulnerable yet so understanding, before taking her hand and getting to his feet. They went outside together and watched the sun go up.
on two empty pages of the journal, he drew a picture of the sunrise. She wants to flip through and look at the picture now, but she's afraid she'll read something else in the process.
June
She picks up her pieces in June. She is the Number One Employee again, though it doesn't matter to her much whether she's number one or one-hundred. She gathers her things slowly when it's time to leave; she doesn't want to. She decides to try and use another way home, to make the trip longer and make her leftovers and walls wait a little longer.
A delicious smell wafts over to her and surrounds her as she stops and surveys an Italian restaurant. She and he had their first date in a restaurant like this, but she forces the thought out of her mind. With the image of her cold and empty apartment, she gets herself a table. He wouldn't want her like this, she thinks. He wouldn't have wanted her to be unhappy.
"It would have been a wonderful surprise." he mopes. The salmon was overcooked, the bread undercooked, and the wine was sour as it slid down their throats. They walked through the streets, searching. She had smiled fondly at the time, thinking it embodied their relationship. always trying, then failing, then always ending up better than they thought in the end. The restaurant appeared as they rounded a corner, an image of perfection, glowing during the dark night. She laughed as he refused the rolls, claiming that he would give up bread until he could make it himself. he seemed to have forgotten this as he admired the deliciousness of the garlic bread later on. At the end of the night, he walked her back to her apartment. She thanked him for the evening, and turned to leave, but he grabbed her arm, spun her around and kissed her. He whispered in her ear that it was his pleasure, sending shivers down her spine. She opened her mouth to ask something she might have regretted in the morning, but he silenced her with another kiss and was gone.
Her tears that always seemed to come dripped into her soup, and she quickly paid and left. The waiter brought the untouched food back to the kitchen confused but content, as his tip was the highlight of his week
The restaurant served the soup to another young woman, who that night dreamt of a box she couldn't open and a door she couldn't go through.
she opens the journal to the very back so she won't see anything, but instead finds a message. Don't forge--- She closes it quickly. She doesn't want to remember.
July
They were going to take a trip around the world. "We'll take a million pictures," he said, "and brag to everyone. 'Oh yes, we've been there. Luxembourg? Yes, we've been there too.' We'll force everyone else into traveling, just so they can go somewhere we haven't."
She canceled everything after his funeral. All the nights in Paris, all the quaint little country bed-and-breakfast cottages. A friend offered to go with her instead, but she knew the friend only offered out of politeness. No one in their right mind would go with a widow on a trip that was meant for her and her husband a week after his funeral.
"Catch!" he called out, throwing an indistinguishable lump of strings and fabric. She raised her eyebrows.
"What's this?" She asked, picking it up, the "lump" revealing itself to be a very revealing bikini.
"You're going to wear that at every pool, every lake, and every beach we go to on this trip." He commanded, his grin devious. She threw it back at him.
"No way! We'll get kicked out of all our hotels I so laboriously reserved."
"Come on; you'll look fantastic in it!" He pouted, making her hesitate for just a second before she remembered how much string it actually was and how much cloth it wasn't. She gave him a Look and he sighed. "Well, I suppose there are always nude beaches then."
Even though she cancelled all of their plans, she hadn't ever unpacked their suitcases. they gave her too many possible memories Instead, she put them in the back of the closet, the closet that would later hold a mysterious bottle of shampoo and the ashes of a receipt for a nice Italian dinner.
A flower fell out of the journal, and, still unable to open it, she framed the flower and hung it up in the closet. She hung it on the back wall, so that every time she closed the closet, it was the last thing she saw.
August
She hates him. She hates him and loves him, because he loved her and he left her. He said he would always be there, and now, he wasn't. She cries at night because he broke his promise. She cries harder because he didn't mean to.
A flash of light, and then it was over. The car's flashy hood gleamed in the daylight, but now, it was smeared with specks of blood. The police were there, a few minutes later, along with an ambulance. She could barely stand to watch as they inspected the girl's body, and took it away. They cleaned up the blood, but it seemed to her that there was always the faintest, faintest imprint of the girl on the street. She went to her funeral. He told her it wasn't her fault, how could it be? But then, she would think quietly to herself, how could it not be? She should have told the girl to wait. She could have said something, anything; stop, please, don't go! Somewhere in her mind, she knew it wouldn't have helped calling to the kindergartener; the car has just rounded the corner, there was no way it could have been prevented. "Damn it!" he yelled to her, two months later. She recoiled noticeably; he never yelled at her. "Get over this! This isn't your fault; it can't be your fault! If anything, it was that guy's fault, and he's in court with her family! Don't beat yourself up for something you can't change!"
Because now, just like back then, she couldn't change something she needed to change. Now, she was stuck in the darkness, without him there to pull her into the light. she hates him so much because she doesn't know how to live without him
She takes a deep breath, and opens the journal. She likes daisies, and smells like violets. She closes the journal, and suddenly remembers the bottle of shampoo in the back of her closet. It smelled like roses.
September
She wishes she were with him. She isn't angry any more, but she isn't sad either. She is confused, because even though she misses him, she finds herself able to live without him. Mostly.
She wakes up in the middle of the night, reaching for a person that's not there. A tear glints in the moonlight as she stares at his spot. It's empty and cold, with no one there to warm her. But she makes it this way, because having someone else there would be like betraying him. Replacing him.
It's daybreak, with the sun behind the clouds. She thinks sadly that it's like her and him: she can see the light, but she can't feel the warmth.
His arm is around her as the train flies through the countryside. All the chitter-chatter surrounding them doesn't matter when he's there. She notes, too, what a good pillow he is. So warm, so strong; she always felt safe in his arms. The sun was setting already, and his hand was in her hair, twirling it. She laced her fingers with his, closing her eyes slowly, the warmth of the sun and his breath and his touch tempting her to sleep.
She didn't remember where the train was going, only that she wished they could have stayed on the train longer. All she has now are memories, almost the opposite of him. He had made her feel so warm, so alive, and remembering him just makes her sink down lower and lower into the darkness.
She thought reading the journal would help her move on, but every entry seemed harder to bear. I want to tell her I love her, but I'm afraid she doesn't love me back. And yet, the next night, she had Italian for dinner.
October
In the beginning, she could barely remember him. She met him and found him to be just another face, and quickly forgot about him. Until the letters came.
The envelope was crumpled, as if the sender half-decided they would just throw out the letter, but sent it at the last second. The stationary had puppies on it; she'd later find out he couldn't find any better stationary, and normal paper didn't seem worthy. She opened it curiously, as it had no return address and wasn't signed at the bottom. "You're a very interesting person, did you know that? Because I've seen you, and really, you have me positively riveted. No, I'm not being sarcastic; just the way you are demands all of my attention. So, if you could please extract yourself from my thought, it would be most appreciated. my grades are suffering"
She never considered the possibility of throwing it out.
It was in a box, now, the paper crinkling and the words fading from being read so many times. not that she ever reread them any more. They were in the same closet as the shampoo. At first, she was confused. And she was even more confused when the second letter came, a week and a half later. And another letter, and another, and soon, she wished the sender would put their name so she could write back. Not to insult them and not to stop them, but to share her thoughts and feelings as well.
"Do you believe in love? I've never been in love before, and I've never talked to you. That means I can't possibly be in love, right?"
If she could have replied at the time, she might have told them that if it did mean they were in love, then she was in love with that person too.
the journal held even more letters that he ended up not sending. She read them all in one night. She then took three days off from work, got out all the letters, sent and unsent and wrote replies to each and every one of them.
November
She goes to work and asks for a demotion in November. She doesn't need the money. Her boss is confused, but agrees hesitantly. She has more free time now, and at home, she writes. She writes about every memory she can, and they're not all memories of him. And one day, after writing for hours, she realizes she hadn't mentioned him once.
"What're you going to do with your life?" she asks him one day. They are young and happy, in the middle stages of their relationship. The coffee shop is lazy and quiet as most people are at work. They both took the day off.
"Marry you." He replied without a second thought, and she rolled her eyes. but she smiled too. "Aside from that, I think I'd like to write a book."
She writes about him now, sometimes quoting his journal. But what she writes isn't his message; it's not his book. It was his dream, and she does it partly for him. But really, she realizes eventually, she writes it even more for herself.
I love her. I'll never stop loving her. She reads only a paragraph of the journal entry before she has to put it away; she's afraid her tears will smudge the ink. The next day, she visits his grave and tells him over and over that she'll never stop loving him either.
December
For Christmas last year, he gave her a diamond ring. diamonds are forever She threw it at the wall when he died, and couldn't find it again for a long time. But her family is coming over for the first time in the last year, and she finds the ring while cleaning. She takes it to the jeweler, has it polished, then puts it on her right hand and never takes it off.
They went ice skating together, helping each other up when they fell. They made snow angels in the park, and they made sure they didn't' step on them. no one else did, either They made hot cocoa and drank it together in front of the fire, both wishing the moment would never end. They kissed under the trees in the park because they couldn't find any mistletoe.
Her sister gives her a kitten for Christmas, and she names it Destiny. It scratches some of her furniture, but she forgives it as it sleeps in her lap, picture perfect.
She finds the sunrise picture late at night, not expecting it. But then she cries because of all that happened to them then, and cries harder than ever before as she reads the entry. Before she can blink, all of her sadness is upon her, the strongest she has ever felt it. She misses him so much it hurts, and she didn't think she'd ever stop crying, but then Destiny came to her, meowing. And, sniffing and hiccupping, she fell asleep with the journal next to her, open to the sunrise picture, with Destiny on her other side.
When she wakes up in the sunlight the next morning, she thinks of just one word. Vindicated.
January
On New Years Eve, she opens a bottle of champagne and pours two glasses. At midnight, she pours one glass on his grave while drinking the other. Fireworks go up in the sky, and she remembers how cold the world was a year ago. "Don't forget me!" She reads the last page of the journal that night. He wrote about how glad he was to be starting the new year with her at his side. He wrote about how amazing she was, and how he didn't feel worthy. But he was happy in it, too. He wrote that he hoped she knew he thought she was amazing, and he hoped she'd be able to live without him. he'd never be able to live without her, he writes The last sentence of the journal was the last sentence of her book.
I hope, a year from now, I'll still be with her, and she'll be happy.
His hopes came true.