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.
