Never before have I felt such overwhelming sadness;it engulfs me, dragging me down into the deepest, darkest recesses of a seemingly endless abyss of nothingness. How do I cope with it? How do others cope with it? I've only felt this way for 18 months and it's killing me, others have dealt with this for so much longer.. How do they find the strength to carry on? It's constantly carrying around dead weight on your back. It's saying your fine when in reality your crumbling, simply because no one else would understand. It's questioning your very existence every single second of the day. It's the constant internal debates over what should be the simplest of things. In my sane, logical mind I know it hasn't always been this way , but it feels like this feeling has always been there, like this aching in my chest is a constant. Everyone always says it'll get better with time. It doesn't! Time makes it worse. Over time the feeling grows almost unbearably Stronger, but no one notices because time gives you chance to learn how to mask your feelings, to put up a calm and collected facade designed to hide your real thoughts and feelings.
Each day I'm simply going through the motions, I wake up, get dressed, go to work and come home. Hardly ever deviating from this ritual. Just a never ending cycle that seems to blur into one until hours, days, months become inconsequential. Some may deem this the worst part, the monotonous nature of my existence,but they're wrong. The worst part is the days, though far and few between, that I get the tiniest sliver of hope that there's a light at the end of this oppressive tunnel. It's the days where I wake up and for just a split second the weight isn't there, I'm free of the guilt, the sadness, only for it to come crashing back on top of me once again suffocating me within its clutches. It's the tiny moment where something reminds me of her, a waft of her perfume, the same expressive blue of her eyes and for a second it's not guilt encompassing me, it's her. Her strong, comforting arms holding me close like a safety blanket protecting me from the harsh realities of the real world. Those moments are the hardest because no sooner do I smell her perfume than its gone with the wind and I'm left behind in the dust, unshed tears tainting the eyes she loved to stare into so lovingly.
In all honesty I don't know how to continue on, the pain that stabs my heart grows worse with each passing day, sometimes I think I'd be better off just ending it all. Cutting just a little too deep, swallowing a load of pills. Anything to release my mind to the tranquility and clarity that death would surely bring. No more nightmares, no more hidden feelings, no more anything... Just a blissful eternity of nothingness. Despite the temptations, I can't. Just can't. She would never have wanted me to end it all due to her, she would have wanted me to carry on, find someone else to love me, maybe have some children. That's ridiculous. No one could ever replace her in my heart and it simply wouldn't be fair to date anyone else when I could never give myself to them fully. Not that I want anyone else, everyone else pales in comparison to her beauty, both inside and out. She truly was the love of my life, as cliche as that sounds it's true without a shadow of a doubt. Besides I deserve this, it's my punishment for failing her so badly. What if I had saved her, compressed her wound better, took the bullet for her. Hell what if I'd had the courage to admit to the world my love for her then I would've held her hand and it would've hit me anyway. All these 'what ifs' are destroying me, tearing me up inside, keeping me awake at night running through every conceivable scenario until the sun rises once again and my alarm blares out. That's right, I deserve This pain. Ending it all would be the cowards way out, I've been a coward too many times and it's cost me the most important thing in my life. I won't... Can't let that happen again. No. I can't end it, I must trudge on with life. Hoping and praying that one day I will wake up and find this has all been a horrendous dream ,or at the very least that I die sooner rather than later. Until then I shall bide my time, waiting for the grim reaper to come for me. Filling my days with work and my sweet memories of her. Laying awake reminiscing of all the now heart-wrenching moments we shared. Even now, so long since she's been gone, I don't have the heart to change anything, as if changing things would some how make me forget her.
Every night is spent staring at what used to be her pillow, her side of the bed, it even still smells faintly of the scent that I know as so uniquely her. A mixture of jasmine and vanilla, with something else that I could never place but all combines to make the irresistible aroma that is just so purely her and her alone. It's become a sort of ritual that every night I go to sleep wearing her old Harvard sweatshirt that she gave me the first night I spent at hers and I fall asleep with my arm kind of draped across her pillow. It's never the same as holding her but it brings me a small amount of comfort, which is all I can hope for in these such dark days.
Knock! knock! Knock! Knock!
The quick succession of the four knocks on my door makes my heart stop. No. I can't let myself hope for something that is so impossible, but that was her knock. She is the only person I know that knocks like that.
Quickly I roll over, it's 2am. Who would come here at 2am? Much less without calling first. Stumbling out of bed I pull on some jeans, carefully padding my way through my apartment to the door. Opening it, my heart skips a beat. It... It can't be. She was gone, but now she's hear on my doorstep, soaked from the rain.
"Alex?.. I-Is it really you?"
"Yeah liv, it's me... It's been so long. Too long. God I've missed you so much"
"B-but you were dead.. I spoke at your funeral, watched you lowered into the ground, left you a single yellow rose just like you wanted."
"There's so much I have to tell you liv. I never died, agent Hammond put me in witness protection, he wouldn't let me tell anyone. I begged and pleaded with them to let me tell you, but they wouldn't allow it. Wouldn't even let me take a picture of any of you, so I snuck one in."
"Alex, come on inside. We need to get you warm and dry then we can talk for as long as we want. God I've missed you"
Ushering alex inside, I find her some dry clothes. At first I started to go through her clothes that I never could work up the nerve to get rid of, then she stopped me. Instead preferring to wear some of mine, not that I minded. I like that she loves to wear my clothes just as much as I love to wear hers. A short while later we're both sat on my couch with a cup of tea, staring at eachother as if looking away would make the other vanish again.
"So.. Do you want to tell me about you time in WPP? It's fine if you don't, just tell me whatever you feel comfortable with. It's enough for me just to have you back. It was a long 18 months."
"Honestly, I hated it liv. My name was Emily. I mean come on, it sounds so dainty and weak. I spent every second of everyday wishing I was with you. I could have never got anything else back, they could keep the money, the job, the name, everyone else. I just needed you.
"God Alex I felt exactly the same. So many times I just wanted to be with you. Death with you, would be infinitely better than life without you. It's been awful Alex. I've just been living in this dark haze, nothing's been the same without you. So many times I wanted to end it all, but I didn't because I couldn't let you down like that. Now I'm so glad I didn't. I just got so sick of the everyone telling me to move on, setting me up with people. None of them were you. I tried, I knew that you wouldn't want me to be alone forever, but none of them had eyes as piercing and expressive as yours, the sunlight didn't shine off their hair like it does off yours. No one was as passionate as you, no one was as ambitious while still caring about the people they passed on the way up like you, no one was as incredibly smart as you are. They just weren't you. So I gave up, resigned myself to being alone until the end."
"Oh liv, I'm so sorry to have put you through this. You didn't deserve this. For what it's worth, I only went on 2 dates the entire time I was gone, and they were disasters. None of them could compare to you, so I gave up. Hoping that one day Velez would be caught and I could return to your arms... No where else makes me feel safer."
Getting the hint, I open my arms, inviting her into my embrace. In seconds she's clinging to me as if life depended on it. Nothing has ever felt so good, just holding her once again. I'm never letting her go again. We sit like this for a long time, whispering lovingly to each other.
"..Lex. I love you. So, so much. Words literally can't describe how much I love you. I never stopped."
"I'm so relieved to hear you say that.. Your the love of my life liv. There could never be anyone I love more than you. Please tell me we can start again.. Have a future together."
"No Alex." I immediately feel her tense up. " but we can pick up where we left off. I don't want to start over, I cherish our memories together so much. I don't wanna leave them behind. I want to move forward and grow old together."
"I want that too liv, more than you'll ever know"
Gently placing my hand under her chin, I lift up her face so I can stare into her perfect, intense blue eyes. Then I kiss her. Pouring every emotion I've felt over the last 18 months into it, the love, the longing, the desire, everything. In reality it probably only lasted seconds but to us it lasted the 18 months we were apart.
After a while, I stand up, picking Alex up bridal style and carrying her to bed. Our bed. Carefully I place her on her side of the bed and climb in beside her. Just like we used to, I place my arm over her waist and pull close, cuddling up together it's like no time has passed at all. We still have a lot to talk about, but that can all wait until tomorrow. Right now I'm content to fall asleep with the love of my life in my arms once again. We might not be the most conventional couple and it might not be a 'happily ever after', but neither of us care. If life ceased to exist right now, it wouldn't matter. We both got our wish, to be together... Forever.