Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi, but I own this depressing story.
Title: Pretty Eyes
Summary: After we die, they have to move on, but Clare doesn't want to say goodbye.
A/N: It's 11:41 at night and everyone in my house is asleep and insomnia is taking over, so I'm going to start typing this. Enjoy? xD
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I grab my youngest daughter's hand and drag her through the lit up room filled with people wearing black. I try to be strong, holding a weak smile on my face for my three daughters, not old enough to know what happened.
"Lilly, stay close," I call to my middle daughter, who had just turned five. She runs over to me and smiles, unaware of what is going on around her.
"Mommy, where are we?" My seven year old daughter, Eliza, asks, tugging at her black dress.
"Mommy, where's daddy?" Lilly asks and my smile fades and the tears pour out of my eyes, turning away from my three little girls. Emily, my youngest daughter, only two and a half years old, tugs at my dress and whines.
"Guys, go with Auntie Darcy," I say, finding my sister and leaving them with her. She smiles weakly at me and takes them out of the room.
"Clare?" I hear my name being called and I turn my head, only to see Alli. "Are you okay?" She asks, rubbing my back softly.
"I-I… He-he's gone," I whisper, sobbing. She pulls me into her arms and cries along with me. "Eli was all I had. I-I have to raise our girls by myself. I can't believe he's gone, Alli," I mutter, in between sobs.
I pull out of Alli's arms and see my mom walking towards me. "Clare-Bear," She coos, trying to sooth me. "Do you want to say goodbye?" My mom asks.
I almost feel like laughing at her stupid question. Do I want to say goodbye to my dead husband? Of course not.
My nails are bitten down to nothing and my bottom lip is bleeding from gnawing anxiously at it. The anxiety I have from losing my husband is unbearable. The pain I am experiencing is unreal. The stress I am under is overwhelming.
Realizing that I have to live my whole life without him is the worst possible thought that I hoped would never cross my mind.
Eli and I had a very amazing marriage. Everyone always complimented us, telling us how they wished they would fall in love with someone as deeply as we were. Until the day he died, we had loved each other the way we had back in high school.
When I had told Eli I was pregnant with his first baby, he had tears in his eyes, and at that moment, I knew he was going to be the perfect father for my unborn son or daughter.
When he held my hand in the delivery room and whispered soothing things in my ear, I knew that we would raise the perfect family.
Then we were in the delivery room two more times, the same hand holding mine. The same voice whispering in my ear. "Everything's going to be okay. You're beautiful, Clare. I love you. Look what we created. I love you so much."
The memories flood my mind and I swallow back the lump in my throat. I realize how long I had been standing there, not answering my mom's question. "I-I g-guess I have to eventually," I say, grabbing Alli's hand.
Each step to the casket feels like a mile. My body is forcing itself there. I'm trudging over to the casket. It feels like I'm planning my own murder. It feels like it takes hours to get there. My heart is burning, pounding in my chest as I swallow the tears. I know I have to be strong because this is the last time you'll ever see me.
I blink back the tears as my mom pushes through the people, approaching the casket. I stop, squeezing my eyes shut and turning around, unmoving. "I-I can't," I whisper, my bottom lip quivering.
Alli nudges me closer, tears pouring out of my eyes. I open them slowly and see the man I have loved nonstop for ten years. I want nothing but to see you open your eyes and look up at me and tell me you love me one last time.
Your body is limp, lifeless, but what else was I expecting? Your face is pale and your lips are white. You look like a ghost. You're wearing a suit and my heart jumps up my throat, realizing that the last time I saw you in a suit was at our wedding. I swallow hard, gulping, and grab your hand softly. It's cold, freezing. Your hands had always been cold, but never that cold. Your wedding ring was on your finger, matching mine. I suddenly found it hard to swallow as I stared at you, and I find that I, myself, am dead. Staring at your lifeless body makes my heart swell and it feels like it isn't beating. My blood turns cold as I stare at your face, a blank expression. No smirk. No snarky, sarcastic comment. No Eli.
I turn away, falling to the ground next to the casket. I know this isn't what you would want. You hated being the center of attention and now all eyes are on you. You're on display, up for everyone to see.
My body lays limp on the floor as I try to go back to a time when you were here with me. My mom's hands grab me and pull me off the ground. "Let's go," She whispers and I push her off me, telling her I need time alone with you. Time to say goodbye.
She nods, understanding. She walks away, leaving me alone with Eli, even though the room is full of people. That was the way it always was with Eli and me. In a room full of hundreds of people, we felt as if we were alone together. As if time had stopped. As if we had all the time in the world to be together.
"I love you, Eli," I whisper, staring at your blank face. Tears stream down my cheeks and I know that if you were here, you would tell me not to cry and that I was beautiful. You would tell me I will find someone else. You would tell me to forget you.
"I-I'm going to miss you," I say, my throat starting to hurt. You would hug me and tell me that I deserved better than you anyway.
"I can't ever let you go," I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself and taking a deep, shaky breath.
"There will never be a day when I won't think of you, I promise," I say, gripping the side of the casket and letting my tears fall.
"I will always love you, Eli," I say, my voice hoarse from all the crying.
When he had come home late that night, I had thought that he was with another woman. He had smirked at me, wrapping his arms around my slender waist and kissing my cheek. "Would I ever need another woman?" He had said, holding me close to his warm body.
"Then where were you?" I had asked and you loosened your hold on me.
"I was at the doctor's," He said, turning me around to look at his face.
"Why?" I had asked and his face dropped in sadness. "Is something wrong?"
"I have been feeling sick lately and I didn't want to scare you, so I went to see if it was serious before I told you," Eli said, dropping his arms from my hips.
"So y-you're telling me now because it's serious?" I said, feeling my eyes tear up.
"W-well they did some tests and th-they found a-a lump…in my brain," He had said. He saw the look of terror on my face and grabbed my hands. "They aren't sure what it is yet, Clare. D-don't think the worst. It's probably nothing," Eli had said, pulling me back into his arms.
Within that week, I had noticed Eli getting lazier and more tired, sleeping later. I had stayed in bed with him, holding him closely to me as he cried. "I can't leave you, Clare. I can't leave the girls. I can't leave my family," He whispered, over and over, in my ear every night.
Eli had died before we even got a call back from the doctor. On his last night, we both knew it was over. He had held me even closer, told me he loved me even more, and tucked the girls in bed, reading them extra stories. His ending had come so fast, neither of us even thinking that he would be gone a week before.
I had fallen asleep to his soothing words and woke up wrapped in his dead, lifeless arms. I had laid there, crying for hours, wanting to feel his warmth again, wanting to tell him I loved him, just one last time. I just wanted him back.
I back away from the casket and my little girls come running to me. "Why don't you say goodbye to daddy?" I ask.
"Wh-what do you mean?" Eliza asks.
"This is the last time you'll ever see daddy," I say, my heart breaking as all six eyes start to water.
"Was it something I did?" Lilly asks, her bottom lip quivering.
"I promise, I'll go to bed on time. I won't watch too much TV. I promise I'll be better," Eliza says, pulling on the bottom of my dress.
"It's not your fault, guys. Let's say goodbye," I say, lifting Eliza up to see her father.
It is then that I realize how alike they look. Eli had been going on and on about how much he looked like her and I had scoffed at him, saying she was my baby girl and that she looked just like me. I was naïve to the fact that Eliza's chin had a slight bump in the middle, just like Eli's. Her nose was slightly crooked and rounded, like Eli's. I take in a deep, shaky breath as my oldest daughter whispers "goodbye" to her father that she knows will always be with us.
I place her down on the ground and pick up Lilly, who was already bawling her eyes out. "You're gone forever, aren't you, daddy?" She says, gripping to the side of the casket until her small knuckles turn white. "I love you, daddy."
She wiggles free out of my arms and hops back on the floor. I look at Emily and realize she probably won't even remember her father. I grab her hand and start walking away, stopping one last time to whisper back to my deceased husband, "You have pretty eyes."
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Not gonna lie, I cried when I wrote this.
It literally only took me an hour to write this. I don't think a story has ever come to me that fast.
I would really love a review on this. :)
Thank you.