Well, I can't believe this is over! Thank you to every single person who has read (and a special thank you to my wonderful reviewers). I've got some more stuff in the pipeline, so hopefully you guys will be hearing from me again soon. Until then, have a Happy New Year! Please leave one last review guys! I'd really appreciate it. (And thank you to monochromewords for reviewing the previous chapter)
Epilogue
It hits him one day, swift and sure and piercing, (like a bullet in his chest, though it still hurts to make that comparison) that she isn't coming back. No matter how long he waits, no matter how many times he punishes himself, blames himself, no matter how many times he yells at the sky until his throat is raw… she isn't coming back. He expects this new realization to break him all over again; expects to feel the wound crack open and bleed anew, but it doesn't. And somehow, inexplicably, that gives him the courage to remember her.
It's a rainy Thursday in March when he goes into her office. It occurs to him, as he stands in the doorway, that it's been over a year since this door has been opened. A year since life has breathed inside this room. He swallows and flicks the light on, going two paces forward.
It smells of mold and mildew and dampness, but underneath that smell is something else. Something more like her. It comforts him. Her coat is still thrown over the back of the couch, right where she laid it the last time… his heart is in his throat, but he keeps going. Her books are dusty (he should get Emily to come in and dust them off sometime) and stacked neatly on the shelves. Her desk is predictably neat, her computer shut down. A post-it note has a date and phone number scribbled on it in her elegant handwriting.
He sits down in the chair behind her desk and feels his eyes prick painfully. She wasn't much for keeping her workspace cluttered with pictures, but there is one photo on the desk that he picks up. It is a picture of the two of them with Emily, two (no, three? He hates that he can't remember) summers ago at the zoo. They are eating ice cream, (his and Emily's with one scoop, hers with two) silly, happy grins plastered on their faces. They had been rebellious that day, he remembers, and taken Emily to the zoo (on a Monday afternoon, when there were piles of paperwork to do). And Emily had been a bundle of excited energy. And they had fed the giraffes, and his giraffe had slobbered all over his brand new shirt. And she and Emily had laughed and laughed while he pulled faces… Gillian…
And then, before he realizes it, he's laughing. He shocks himself, at first, and feels like he's violating some sort of shrine. But then he looks down at the picture again, and he smiles. Gillian had loved to laugh. Gillian had loved to laugh with him.
So he sits in her office and laughs until he cries, while the rain pounds wildly against the window.
It's not perfect, but it's something.