Chapter 64

Saphrin stayed with me for her birthday, Raven came over too, with Evan since she'd asked him to take care of him so that she and I could have some time together. He came with Evan and Sugarbear to have her birthday, and he baked a cake for her in my kitchen, and brought with him all kinds of presents. Mark mailed a present to their house, said he wanted to give the three of us some time together. It was kind of like the old times, when we'd first met…minus Amber. But I was feeling better about everything so it wasn't really horrible.

They stayed in town for another couple of days, at Mike's hotel. I hadn't been in on it at the time but I see now they were doing that to help me, to kind of ease me into living alone again.

For those few days, they spent nearly all their time at the apartment, at first just hanging out, doing normal things, watching TV, having meals together…at one point Raven discovered the closet full of board games and pulled a few out. They knew it would make me upset, so Raven made sure that a game of Candy Land commenced immediately, not giving me time to freak out. It made me love Raven so much, him doing this, forcing to stop mourning for a moment to be happy.

It also opened me up to a fair level of amusement, seeing in Raven a love for Candy Land that I'd never seen before. Judging by Saphrin's reaction to how passionate he got over it, I knew she'd witnessed this phenomenon before. She laughed all delightfully over it, all happy and endearing…it made me a little jealous, honestly, but I allowed it to pass. Raven was screaming, cursing when he had to go back, crying out in joy at anything good that happened to him. We were all sitting around the rectangle coffee table, Raven flat on the floor with his legs stretched beneath it.

Saphrin was sitting behind him on the couch, I was sitting in the arm chair. We were just…enjoying ourselves. Without Amber. It would take a while to get used to but it wasn't impossible. I came to realized that enjoying myself without her was not betraying her memory. She'd probably want it that way.

That night they didn't leave till way later. The day after that they bought dinner for me at a restaurant and allowed me to drop them off at the hotel, and then let me go home by myself. After five days of gradually leaving me alone I felt better.

That was when problems faced me again. It was then, when I had the apartment to myself, when I was living alone and had to keep the place in order, when I was watching the Food Channel to try to learn how to cook for myself, that I was struck with reality.

He was still out there.

He, because after some talk with James and my own logic we both figured the perpetrator was male, purely from the strength involved. He said it was highly, highly unlikely that it was a woman, due to human nature. Factored into that was the part where Amber had been a professional wrestler, she would've been able to defend herself against another woman, unless it had been some kind of martial artist or body builder or something. And chances of that were very slim. It was possible that it may have been another one of WWF's Divas, but they'd all been spoken with. The idea left that it had been a man was because of the force, and the fact that no weapons were used, just a hand-to-hand fight, save for the one shot of the bow gun which had been in her defense.

Thinking of all of that made my head spin. There had to be something. Something. Something.

Some.

Thing.

That was missing. Just one little detail, one clue to what had happened that night, something that I was overlooking that would've solved the whole fucking problem. It wasn't just a hunch I had, it was the damn truth. There WAS something I was missing, because otherwise things would've been different.

For this reason, the night that Raven and Saph left, I walked into the foyer, dusted and wiped down some of the equipment, and began working out.

In the beginning I did a lot of cardio and working on my legs, I wasn't sure if my arms were ready for that strain yet. The healing progress was doing wonderfully though.

Everything was getting better, living on my own was easy now, I didn't need to be babysat. A few times  a week I talked to Saphrin on the phone, between those intervals got calls from Mark. Raven called now and then, said hi if Mark was calling me from the arena and he was around. I was getting…almost happy? And I wasn't having nightmares.

July passed. Then August. By October I felt like I was physically back to where I had been. I went to go see Amber again then, taking a lot to work up the courage to go to the cemetery. I brought flowers with me, and some more toys for Claudette. Again I put the toys on the little shelf made by the base of the stone, laid the flowers on the ground in front of it. I just sat there for a while, didn't say anything, let a couple of hours pass before I finally started telling her all these things that had been building up for the past eight months.

"I miss you," I started telling her. I felt kind of silly talking to her…it helped that no one was around, and that I kept thinking of Saphrin and how she told me that there was a chance Amber would be hearing me. I was crying a little as I spoke to her. "I love you, you know I do…but I miss you so much…

"It's been around eight months since…well, you know. Eight months is a long time, you know. And you know the sad part, Amber? I only started getting better from it a couple of months ago. I mean…Jesus, I don't think it'll ever be okay on me, but that was just when I started getting better. It's pathetic in a way, but I understand it. I'm not mad at myself for taking that long to just crack a smile, I miss you. I don't even know how I'm alive without you, life without doesn't make any sense. I mean…hell, I don't know how much you know, wherever you are, if you've been keeping an eye on all of us or anything…but you know I tried to kill myself? You remember what I told you, right? That thing about the fire? I don't know…I must've been thinking about it, I was really out of it. I cut my arm, and then…I reached into a fire, I thought I would be able to bring you back. I didn't, instead I just ended up burning on the floor. I may have died if Mark didn't help me…also I had this nightmare, some woman who looked like you was there…I don't know what that was about…

"You know Saphrin's pregnant? She told me right when I got out the hospital. I wasn't sure how to feel about it at first, I mean I was happy for her and all, but I mean…I don't know. I was kind of jealous, you understand that? I know about our son. Would you have named him Armand? That's what I've been calling him, anyway. I figured, since you liked Armand and all, and it was a nice name, you'd name him that. So whenever I'm thinking about you, I think of you and Claudette and Armand."

I paused for a moment, bit back a sob that was threatening to crumble me. "Why did you have to do this?" The tears poured down over my cheeks. I was laying down, stretched out over the grave, not looking at the headstone but up into the clouds. It looked like it was gong to rain but I wasn't one to care at the moment. "I'm so sorry…I should've been home. I should've protected you, that was my job as your husband, as your lover, as your friend…it's my fault, you know? I mean…I'm not the one who killed you or anything, but I feel like it's just as equally my fault that I couldn't have been there. None of this would've happened…

"Are you mad at me for that? I think about it sometimes…I'm mad enough at myself over it, I just wonder if you are, too. If you are, I guess all I can offer to you is that I am really really sorry for everything, you just need to know. I think it was your fault, too, though…"

Could she even hear me? Was I wasn't my time? I asked myself these questions as the anger of it started to set in. "Do you miss me?" I demanded. "Wherever you are, have you really gone to a 'better place', or are you as miserable as I am?" I was crying, shit. I stood up, wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my jacket. I could smell that lilac bush, still, and turned to it. It was only leaves, there were no flowers. Roman stared at me from beneath all its decay. At full height I looked down at the two foot stone, seething. "Why did you fucking leave me?" I shouted. I put my hand up to my forehead, combed my fingers through my hair. My hand curled into a fist and pulled my hair, my other arm was fidgeting as I turned away and started to walk to the lilac bush, to Roman's grave, started to kick the shit out of the tree and tear the bush apart just cause I had to get it out of me.

"What the FUCK did I do to deserve this, Amber?" I screamed up at the sky. The clouds darkened, the air had that coldness to it and that smell that comes right before it rains. I kicked Roman's headstone, sending handfuls of dried leaves flying off of it. I was sobbing and didn't even realize it.

As it started to rain I fell down on the ground, collapsed beneath the tree, felt drunk by the smell of lilac. I curled up in a ball beneath the tree, hugging myself, crying, hoping to a God that I wasn't sure existed that no one else was going to be around to witness this descent. It was raining all over me, and getting dark out, but I didn't do anything about it. After a while I crawled back over to Amber's grave, disheartened to see the toys getting ruined by the rain water.

I held my stomach, on my knees a few feet away from the headstone, with one hand reaching out to graze it with my knuckles. The back of my hand touched it…it was just as cold as her corpse had been. Choking back a sob I pulled my hand away, hugged myself more, fell down onto the ground right above where she was buried.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

AN:/ Heeeey duckies… kinda short chapter, but I'll make up for it! XD There'll probably be another chapter up like tomorrow or something. I'm almost done with the story, I'll probably be working on it really diligently as I have this past week until it's over, soooo yeah. =D Don't be discouraged by the short chapter. :)