Disclaimer: I own nothing
This is my very first ever multi-chapter so please be kind J
Sam hates the winter, and not because its cold or the dangerous roads or anything like that. She hates it for the death of living things. She's lost too much to winter. Her grandmother who died in January when she was eight, her grandfather a month later. They said he died of a broken heart, which when she was a child she thought sounded terribly beautiful and romantic, and when she was a teenager she thought it was just something people said when a person died (like "I'm so sorry for your loss" or "He's in a better place now"), and now today as a fully grown woman she thinks its terribly true.
Sam is in a new winter at the age of twenty-five, and she is in an ill fitting black dress that she is freezing in because she never seems to be able to dress for the occasion, even the really important ones.
She remembers a time in high school when that would have bothered her. She remembers a time in college when he bothered her. She remembers a time last Tuesday when he kissed her goodbye and then forgot to breathe long enough to say hello again. She remembers that an hour ago she stood in a church in front of all of their family and friends holding an urn. She remembers that just two years before that he had stood in that same spot with her and said "Til death to us part.", which seems like another lie because he's dead but she can still feel him invading every inch of her skin.
She knows they expected her to say something profound or beautiful. She didn't of course because she's nothing if not unpredictable. Jeff loved that about her, but now he doesn't love anything, and that really pisses her off. It pisses her off because she still loves the scent of him that clings to his pillow, and the 'I love you' notes she keeps finding all over the damn house, and the way his dress shoes look all big and masculine lined up next to her little ballet flats by the front door, and the sound of his laughter that keeps ringing in her ears even though nothing is funny anymore. She has to be here with all of these people, still loving all of these stupid things about him and he's off in some afterlife, while she deals with his stupid crying mother who wont just be quiet for a minute.
Honestly she could use some quiet right about now. She always thought grief was like the movies where after the initial rush of loved ones you were left to wallow by yourself for a while. Unfortunately she was wrong, apparently when the love of your life dies young everybody wants a piece of the action. Her best friend moves into her guestroom and her mother-in-law sleeps on the couch for two weeks, until she tells Mrs. Michaels sort of rudely that she needs to shower… at her own place, so his mother does and it seems to remind her that she has a life outside of grief. Sam takes that small victory and sets it aside because she still has a crazy overbearing chick in her guestroom and a seemingly endless stream of family and friends who "just want to see how your holding up" which she soon realizes is code for "just want to insert myself into your heartache because it makes my place in the world feel bigger". So its nearly two months after her world came crashing down before she gets a moment to herself.
Which it turns out is not a good thing because idle hands are what lead her to open his closet and step inside. This closet was his one demand when they were house hunting. He said after a lifetime of living in an apartment with no closets that his first house was going to have a million. He had taken one look at the closet and declared that this was the house for them. She had laughed as he slowly but surely turned his closet into a mini man cave with a flat screen TV at the far end and a small recliner near the door. A huge Sinatra poster hangs over his record player which sits on top of a the large cabinet where all of his records are. Stepping into his little space, being surrounded by his stupid Jeff things, his stupid Jeff scent, his greatest stupid folly, it all just reminded her that he wasn't here anymore and that pissed her off all over again. Which was why she started tearing clothes off the hangers and flipped the chair and ripped the poster and threw the 45 that had been on the needle at the TV. When she was all done she regretted it because she had, in her more dramatic moments of despair, vowed to keep the house as a shrine to his memory right down to the dirty socks under the bed and the sheet music he had been working on spread out in the music room. She looks around for a minute, sitting on the floor, then she stands and walks out, closing the door firmly behind her. She feels pretty tired now so she thinks she'll just go lay down for a while.
