Premonition
(def) foreboding: a feeling of evil to come; forewarning: an early warning about a future event
Prologue
Paul had been dead for five days now. Five days, twelve hours and roughly thirty minutes if you wanted to be precise. But to her it felt like an eternity.
Stephanie sniffed back a tear as she shivered in the silence of the deserted graveyard. The bitter wind stung her water stained cheeks and her throat burned with her sorrow as she stood respectfully beside the overwhelming arrangements of flowers in front of her. Their delicate scent was overpowering as they surrounded the ominous hole in the ground, the place where he now lay; Paul's final resting place. Stephanie pushed back the lump in her throat, paralysed by her sorrow. He had been there for at least a couple of hours now. Everyone had left after paying their final respects and saying their last goodbyes to him but she couldn't leave. How could she when it was the last time she would get to be with him. Not only that, Stephanie didn't want to say goodbye to the love of her life just like she didn't want to acknowledge what had happened. It was still so hard to believe he was really gone, that Paul was never coming back. Even when the large white coffin had been lowered into the ground, she still half-expected him to appear next to her shouting "Surprise!" Paul was known for his love of practical jokes after all but unfortunately for her this was no joke. Although at one point during the funeral she swore she felt his arms around her, holding her close to him, momentarily chasing her pain and loneliness away. Because that's what he did. Paul held her and he made her better. He always had and that's what she wanted more than anything in the world right now. For Paul to hold her in his arms; for him to be here one last time so she could tell him that she loved him so very, very much. That she missed him so badly she couldn't sit still most times. The pain of losing him was so unbearable to her. But most of all she would tell him she was sorry. She was so terribly sorry about everything and how she wished she could take it all back. But she could never take it back. She could never make up for what she'd done to him - to them and their wonderful future together. Or at least it could have been wonderful.
Stephanie let out a guttural cry as she choked on her tears. They mixed with the light drizzle that started to fall from the heavy clouds above. Her head was spinning as she struggled to come to terms with what was happening to her. It all seemed like some bitter and twisted joke. A trick someone was playing on her for making Paul get on that bus in the first place because he wasn't supposed to have been there. He was supposed to have been travelling with her and he would have been if she hadn't fucked up everything between them. God, she was never going to forgive herself for this. It was because of her that Paul was dead. She knew it. Everyone around her knew it. They were just being too fucking kind to say the truth to her face.
Stephanie blinked back her tears as she slowly lifted her head. Her hollow eyes stared up at the black sky. She wondered if heaven really existed and if Paul was up there now, looking down on her. Would he hear her if she whispered that she loved him. That she never meant to hurt him. That if she could, she would swap places and be the one lying in the ground and not him because she would in a heartbeat. God knows she was as good as dead anyway because without Paul, she didn't want to live any more. She had no reason to exist. Her life without him was pointless and meaningless and she wasn't so sure she would survive it alone. She didn't even know if she wanted to because when Stephanie had lost Paul, she had lost her heart with him.