Sometimes... just sometimes, I feel like he's with me.
It always seems to be the times when I feel my worst. The times when I have a bad day, or the days that I visit his grave. Now, I crave those days. Whenever I am happy, I wish I wasn't just so I can dream of Sherlock.
He has been dead for almost a year now. On the outside, it seems that I have moved on. I am living with a woman. She is beautiful and intelligent. She told me once that she would never be able to replace Sherlock. Hearing her say his name caused me physical pain, but what broke me more was to know she was telling the truth. That is why I love her. She pretends not to notice that I flinch when I hear his name, pretends not to notice if I cry. Supports me financially, and pretends not to realise I'm still renting Baker Street.
221b is still in the condition I left it. The last time I went there, something overcame me. Anger. I couldn't comprehend why he did it. I knew him better than anyone in the world, and I just didn't understand it.
He left me.
Maybe one day, we'll meet in some kind of afterlife, and he'll explain it all to me, as though I was a child, and I was missing an obvious point. He'd probably be correct. Mrs. Hudson misses him too. She understands. She's kept his room in pristine condition. Even the skull remains. The skull that she hated with such a passion when Sherlock was alive. I keep a scarf tied to his grave. He would have appreciated it, I think. It makes me smile thinking about how Sherlock would react to knowing that. Sentiment, he'd mutter, as though it was something silly.
Maybe it is.
It's funny how things change when people die. You notice every one of the missed opportunities, so many things that should have been said.
Harry is the worst to speak to. Watching Harry has become even more painful. She is happy, and in love with a beautiful woman. She's carefree and happy, and I see something in her eyes, whenever I speak to her. Pity. Experiencing that from Harry Watson is worse than almost anything.
When I see her with her partner, I can't help but see similarities between Sherlock and me. Rachel is strong and independent. Tall and striking, and just a little bit overwhelming. Harry is slightly more vulnerable. She can't bear to be parted from Rachel. In moments of spite, I wonder what would happen if Rachel killed herself. Harry wouldn't look at me with such pity then. She would know what it was like. Then, I realise what I am thinking, and cant help but feel disgusted with what I have become.
Then there are the moments of bliss with Mary. The times when Sherlock melts into the back of my mind, and I am making love to the most perfect, wonderful woman in the world. Then I feel guilt. I feel as though I am somehow disgracing myself and his memory.
Then there are times when Sherlock is all too prominent in my mind when I am with Mary, and I watch a flicker of pain register behind her eyes when the wrong name rolls off of my tongue.
Sometimes, those bad days are the ones I crave. I can cope with everything going wrong, because sometimes, in the evening, when Mary is working away from home, in the strange void between sleep and consciousness, I sense him.
I can smell his aftershave, and hear the faintest whisper of my name. On particularly bad days, he kisses my cheek lightly and I feel the faintest tickle of a curl brush my face. In those brief seconds, I am happy. In those brief seconds I forget. I am back in 221b.
But then reality comes crashing back. My soulmate is dead. I am nothing.
