A/N: Warning: this is quite angsty and darker than my other stories.

You're not here with me now. Somewhere, you're still here, and I can still see your face, hear your laugh and your cry.

It's our place, the park: we used to always come here, and I remember you sitting there in the swings. I'd push you until you grabbed me and forced me to stop. I'd let go, and your swing would crisscross and almost run into the post of the swing set. (But I never let it get to that. I grab your waist and pull you toward me.)

(The sun is shining through your hair in an exquisite way, halfway in the sky as it nears sunset, the wind blowing it every way in such a composed manner. You're five months pregnant with our daughter. I push you slowly, holding my hands softly on your waist half the time. I'll lean down and kiss you on the temple and you run your hands through my hair. Our lips meet, and I intend to kiss your stomach because the concept of it is so beautiful and Amy never let me even touch her stomach when John was in there. But he's here now, walking up and laughing and holding three year old Sarah's hand as he helps her onto the slide.

And we pull away, because there's my kid and there's yours, and then here's ours inside you. It's too perfect, all of it, really.)

You're still not here with me now. The moon hovers behind ominous clouds in the sky, and it's stark and empty as I stand back several feet across from the swing set. I picture you sitting there, as you once were, but I can't hold on to the image for too long before it shatters. It's quiet, this fact I hate, no audible sound but the crickets chirping and an owl wailing as it remains perched on a decaying tree in the distance. The wind blows lightly, leaving a feeling of cold and death and emptiness on my skin.

The dirt and dust on the gravel stir as I walk slowly over to the swing set as if you might suddenly appear - I know you won't, you never do - and I take a seat there, kicking my feet off the ground and rocking back and forth slowly as the rusty swing creaks, and it's the only noise I hear, and I swing higher and higher until I'm at the top and the air turns to fog, until I'm buried in the depths of the world and there's nothing and no one but me and you.

…

Right after you're gone, I do a lot of stupid, preposterous things. Peeking inside the bedroom, I see Avery lying in her crib. I'm frozen when she meets my eyes with her soft, large brown ones; she does that often, and it makes me think of you. I tell myself I just want to forget about you; I want to forget that you're dead because in my mind you're still here, you're still here and you're all I can see.

I don't step into the bedroom. You've been gone seven days; Avery's been alive seven days. She looks so fragile and small - she's got your eyes and smile and nothing of me. And when she cries, I still don't go inside. I allow the piercing cry to fill the room, and then I walk out.

I stop steps within the hallway there. I don't hit or break anything, but I sit down against the wall and I begin to cry, too.

…

"The baby's crying. Are you not going to do anything?" Ruben shouts as he walks into the house, trying to find his voice over the turbulence of the baby's cries.

"No."

"She's your daughter!"

"I don't want her." Somewhere inside me I know I don't mean that, but right now, I mean every word.

…

After you're gone, I figure the house arrangements will change with Sarah. She's not mine, and there's no blood relation there, but Ben doesn't even mention it and I won't either - I never talk about you. Everyone knows better than to bring it up. But Sarah's not my kid. Would you have wanted her to continue spending the weekends with me, too?

…

Sometimes I'm angry that you left me. I know that it's not your fault, it would have never been your intention, but I'm still forced to look at Avery and Sarah and John every day and they make me think of you. Even John, who isn't your child, reminds me of you.

Avery turns one soon and I think that so many things about being a parent would be much easier if you were still here. You'd be so much better with them, I know. And sometimes I find myself not knowing what to do, because you're not here, and I'm always the one making all the decisions.

It'll be after I come home from work - it's always harder at night - and it's quiet and empty in the house because I haven't picked up Avery from your parents' house yet.

I know you'd probably be shocked at me and upset, but I'm upset at you, too: I let the vodka slowly burn down my throat, and you know that picture of us at our wedding inside that picture frame Grace got for you? I throw it against the wall and break the glass sitting atop the fireplace, and they shatter, just like you did.

…

(You're covered in a white sheet as you press your body to mine. My cold hand brushes across your arm and you squeal. My hand then goes quickly to your mouth and I'm shushing you, because John's asleep on the other side of the house. I feel you smirk underneath it and I lift my hand away just so I can see.)

You're not here with me now, and I'm not covered in a white sheet, either. The sheet's pushed down at the end of the bed because the temperature reaches seventy tonight. "Are you thinking about her?"

This part is a lie. "No." I think about you, even going as far as to pretending this woman whose name I've forgotten is you. I think I even let your name slip from my mouth, too.

…

I have no idea how I manage to stumble into therapy today. I haven't gone to therapy since I was eighteen years old.

…

I've learned that I both like and hate thinking about you. Yes, it took me this long. My shrink told me that it's okay to think about you. When I'm drinking and angry and probably too violent to be around anyone, I can see you so clearly as if I can just reach out and touch you and you'd be here. I feel like my father when I do this, and a part of me slowly begins to understand an inkling of him - but it's under completely different circumstances.

I know, it doesn't make what I'm doing right, either.

Why'd you have to fucking leave me? No one prepares you for moments like that. You see their lamenting and hear their cries and you try to imagine the feeling, then when you experience it yourself still none of it makes any sense. There's no way I could ever be ready.

I think the problem is no one's able to prepare you for life, period.

The whiskey bottle breaks as it hits the floor. It's one of the many triggers that brings on the memories.

("I don't even see the point in this! It's going nowhere, you're not serious. The concept of commitment can't even exist in your mind." Your glass plate crashes to the kitchen floor, and you head for the door. It's the night after I proposed to you.

"Just don't go, Adrian, okay? I screwed up. It was just a kiss, and I didn't even feel anything.")

I feel powerful and vulnerable all at the same time, two opposite emotions somehow coexisting. They've never felt right without you.

…

Occasionally I stash John with Amy and Sarah with Ben for the entire weekend just so I can forget you.

But Avery's still here, this little piece of you that's only mine now, and I sit down and silently hold her, looking down at those eyes that capture me every single time, and it's only the two of us. Sometimes, the resemblance is so close that I feel as if you communicate with me through her.

But maybe it's only me who thinks so.

…

"It's been two years. Don't you think you should move on, start enjoying your life again?" Ben tries.

And that's what he doesn't understand. It doesn't matter if it's been two years. Because two years is two minutes to me, and two centuries, all at the same time. I feel like I just had you yesterday and simultaneously you still feel so far away.

Please, just come back. They've brought people back to the dead before, minutes after them dying, but I don't give a fuck what they say. You're still here, I know it, I can feel you. I refuse to believe you're gone.

…

I go to the cemetery today and sit down on the bench beside your grave and I do what I always do: I wait.

…

Avery is five. She has an asthma attack today, and I don't know where or how she picks it up. I don't think it runs in my family, and I don't think it runs in yours, either. I rush her into the hospital and watch as they quickly take her from me and she's being strolled away.

I wait in the waiting room for two hours. Don't you just need an oxygen mask when you can't breathe? Why would that take two hours?

And then there Avery is in the white room, pale and attached to a breathing tube. She looks so sick.

("Why is she so pale? What's happening?"

They're pressing on my chest, pushing me back. "We're gonna need you to calm down."

"The fuck I'll calm down!")

I swallow lamently and walk into the white room, scrutinizing her small, fragile body lying there. I lean down next to her and brush her hair back. "Hey, pal, how are you feeling?"

"Good," she lies. Always so brave, just like you. She looks so vulnerable with her hospital gown and bracelet attached around her small wrist. I'm not any good at this; Avery's never had to go to the hospital before. I always thought she was so healthy.

I place a kiss on Avery's forehead. "I'm so sorry. I'll never let that happen again. You're not going anywhere."

(I brush her hair back, the nurse whispering: "She's not going anywhere," softly, and it's just to comfort me, I know. She's lying. Adrian still doesn't open her eyes.)

…

John and Avery talk about you a lot when they think I'm not listening. It'll be raining and thundering outside and they'll be seated on the living room couch underneath a large blanket thrown over them, and they whisper of you. "Do you remember her?" Avery asks, and John says, "Kind of. But it's all blurry. She loved me and Daddy." It's not her, it's Mommy, why can't you say that?

Maybe for the same reason I still can't talk about you.

…

I met someone today. No, it's not Amy. She's in love with Ben. Her name is Claire and she has more time on her hands than anyone I've ever seen. She plays the violin and this is how it happened: I walked into her music room looking for a job and somehow walked out with a date.

She's not you, she never can be, and I don't know if it'll work out. But I like her and she's the first girl I've ever met that I want to get to know instead of fucking immediately. Maybe your absence is changing me. Maybe I don't miss you anymore.

She hugs me and I think of you. She kisses me and I wish she were you.

(I still miss you, more than you could ever know.)

…

"Tell me about her," Avery peeps, not expecting a response. She still never specifies with a name, just her.

"What do you want to know?" I always ask this, and she never continues. But this time, she does, perhaps growing tired of evading the subject.

"Just tell me what she was like," her voice is slightly irritated, but her eyes are filled with curiosity and uncertainty, "please. Do I look like her?"

The questions hurt, and what hurts even more is that Avery is a spitting image of her mother. The first year of her birth, I could hardly look at her.

"Yes, you look just like her." I know she'd like me to say more, but I can't process the words correctly. She cranes her face into my neck, and I kiss the top of her head dramatically.

"Did she meet me?" Avery practically whispers it, and this hurts me the most. God, please, please no. Anything but this.

"Yes. And she held onto you until she couldn't anymore." There's a hitch in my breath, a lump in my throat. I'm looking straight ahead at that awful leather black couch I still have sitting in our room, and I remember you lying there. I look away but you never leave, even when I close my eyes.

…

(Blood, all over my hands and the white hospital bed. "You're bleeding."

"Shit. Ricky. Ricky, it hurts."

The nurse says it's normal, just a little blood, but she's checking back with the other doctors and I know it's not. You're seven weeks early delivering the baby, and I fail to see how everything could possibly be alright when it's this early. Several doctors come back, but it's too late; the baby's coming too soon, and as soon as the contractions fade and it's time to start pushing, I see your face as white as a ghost, dark circles under your eyes, and your head falls back against the pillow.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Your heartbeat slows, and your hand's so cold but I grip it anyway, willing you to stay with me. The world spins by, and they're telling me to calm down, but how the fuck am I supposed to calm down? They're too occupied making sure the baby doesn't deliver stillborn that they practically forget about you.

A baby's cry fills the room, and it's right next to me but it's as if I barely hear it.

The room's foggy; and so is your monitor. Keep ticking, don't stop. When you wake hours later, no one believes it. The monitor is beeping at a dangerously, drastically low rate that makes no sense for you to be awake during - you're a fighter, you're strong, they don't see that like I do - and they're all rushing, and I look at your pale white face and it's as if I've already lost you.

You're not yourself, not anyone, just this nothingness as if you're only alive for this one moment and nothing else matters. It's as if suddenly the baby's become the most important thing to you.

The monitor stops as soon as Avery is placed in your arms, before I touch your hand and right as I mumble, "I love you." I think you heard. I know what you would tell me if you still could: "I already knew that."

Avery cries, and so do I. They have to pry me away from you because I refuse to let go. They take Avery away from you, and they take you away from me.)

…

Avery goes to the park for the first time, but I don't tell her it's ours. It's heartbreaking and beautiful watching her as she climbs onto the swing, and I allow myself to stand behind her and push her lightly and she just laughs. She's such a happy kid most of the time, almost as if your absence doesn't even faze her - she doesn't remember you, anyway.

But as usual, I'm wrong.

The prison around my heart writhes away when she says, "Mommy would love this."

I already knew that.

…

I'm running my hand over the carved name on your grave.

I think I see your face for a split moment, feel your breath on my skin, and you're whispering to me to let go, that I can be okay. I won't let you go, ever, and you better know that. But I believe you.

Just sit with me here for a little while, though, okay? I need just a little more time with you.