Chapter 12.

9.25 AM Thursday

I hate it when dreams mix in with your reality and for the first moments when you wake you can't quite tell which one is which. I stretch my hand out to touch Edward's face; he always slept on my right side. I'm smiling, I think, until my hand touches the empty cold pillow. Old habits die hard with me. Even after four years, I've only slept on the left side of any bed, leaving the other half for him, just in case miracles happen.

When I lived here, before he was killed, he would wait until my parents went to bed and he would climb up the Begonia trellis, cutting himself on its sharp thorns in the process, just so we could spend a few hours snuggled up together. We would sometimes sleep, but more often than not, we would quietly slip out of bed and make love on the floor, as the springs in the bed gave away our secret trysts. He would whisper to me, telling me he loved me, showing me with his hands and mouth that he was meant for me, and I in return was meant for him. He would find our secret stash of condoms that I had between the mattresses, and we learned how to make love together. Each the other's firsts -I kept him my last.

I get up and reach between the mattresses and find our rumpled stash. In what is probably a strange move, I inhale the packaging, knowing his hands were the last to touch it.

It's not the first time I think I'm going to cry today.

Next update: 12.35AM.