Part One: Lifeless

My heart is empty.

It's gaping, and ugly, a wound I can't close. Punctured with tortured memories of your rare laughter, totally unaware for what the future is to bring.

Life has no purpose.

Now I am as good as dead, too.

The hoverers are there from the start. Blurry, at the edge of my vision, the move like shadows with the sun. Pretending this is a sickness mother can cure.

She can't fix this.

You would always sit with me when I was sick.

And then.

A day passes, and then a week, bitter anniversaries of life without you. A new plan takes shape in me. I refuse to eat, to drink, to sleep.

So help me, I will kill myself for killing you.

Then he comes. Dark and gray and like a brother, smelling like you always smelled. He talks. Just talks about you, for hours. Sometimes when he thinks I'm asleep, he cries, too.

His sobs fill the air.

I say nothing, but a tear streaks down my cheek, pale and clear and precise, leaving a clean line from my eye to my ear.

He understands.

Hugs me so tight I can't breathe, chests heaving in unison, nothing is comforting.

But I wish he would never let me go.