Stranger.
Carly shifted and stirred.
The bed felt cold. And that felt wrong.
She scrunched deeper into her comforter and pillows, trying to pull more warmth around her. Her eyes slowly cracked opened and she found herself staring blankly at the ceiling in the darkness of the room. She edged her left hand out to that side of the bed and found nothing, leaving her hand to rest there in the emptiness.
Gradually, she became more awake and rubbed her sleepy eyes, sitting up, gathering the comforter around her shoulders, hugging her knees to the chest. She looked around the darkness of her bedroom. The glow of the city that cast a twilight through the windows was enough to see shades of grey. She looked around again. The room was empty. The bedroom door was closed.
Her eyes focused on the bedside alarm clock. It was almost three in the morning. Beside the clock was the picture frame. She reached out for it and held it to her raised knees, angled so that she could see the image in the twilight. She touched the cold glass with her fingers, caressing the image of Sam smiling at her from that first day in L.A. The day they had moved into this tiny, cheap apartment. Back when they thought that anything was still possible.
A tear escaped her eyes and she quickly rubbed it away, but it was soon followed by more that flooded her cheeks until it was pointless to do anything but to let them flow.
She curled over onto her side in bed, facing what used to be Sam's side, and hugged the picture to her chest. Then, the sobbing began again in earnest.
When the first tendrils of dawn reached into the bedroom, Carly was still clutching the picture to her breast, but the tears had long since run out. At least for another night. She stared at the new morning, but without the feeling of hope and rebirth that greeted her in the past.
She sat up and looked at the face in the picture again. Sam was smiling like she had won the lottery, her eyes bright, her long blond hair tied back in a pony tail, sitting in the corner of the kitchen countertop, raising a bottle of beer in a salute to the camera. She was in those ugly blue denim bib coverall shorts she liked to wear with a blue t-shirt beneath. Carly only liked her wearing those by themselves. And she smiled at the memory of Sam in better days.
With a gentle kiss of her lips to the image of her love, her heart, she returned the frame to the table beside her bed. Then, she just lay there, on her side, staring at the picture and remembering.
The bedroom door flew open as Sam burst into the room, blond curls bouncing as she moved, her roll bag being tossed to the floor by the door in a single movement as she continued across the small bedroom to the closet and dresser.
"Hey, sleepy head!" Sam called as she moved. "Get up! The day's already started. I've been to the gym and a run and now I need a shower and food." Sam was rooting through the closet, pulling out those hideous coverall bib shorts. "Come on, lazy ass…jeeze, and I thought I was impossible to get outta bed." Sam rooted through the dresser drawers, pulled out a pair of boxers and a tank top and a pair of ankle socks. "Mind you, there are times when you make me want spend the rest of my life in bed. Would you get up and make me some grub, woman? I gotta be on set by noon." Sam blew Carly a kiss and vanished out the bedroom door.
Carly gave a heavy sigh and stared for a long time at the closed bedroom door as the memory faded. It was several minutes before she managed to summon the urge to climb out of bed and shuffle across to the door. She gave it a sad look before turning the knob and pulling the door open. She stood a moment in the open doorway.
Tears formed in her eyes and she fell back against the frame. She slid to her heels and hugged herself as another crying jag started. Carly let the tears fall. God, how she missed Sam. She was her strength. Without her, Carly had no reason to even get out of bed. Even after five days, Carly still had no idea how she would be able to go on.
Maybe it was because Carly still refused to accept that Sam was gone.