It still hurts. People say time heals all things but I don't think that's that case. After eighteen months and four days, it can still be crippling. I think what happens is you just get used to it. It's a kind of numbness most days and then intense pains other days because you bumped the tender spot but she wants more for me than to live between numbness and agony. So, I have to live for both of us even if some days all I can do is lay in bed and look through her Instagram and stare at the pictures I hung all over our walls. I'm really glad she liked pictures so much.

"Hey!" Grey and Juvia wave to me from the back of the café. We don't go to the other one anymore, it was too hard, the regulars looked at us with pity and the waitress who always served us couldn't quite muster a genuine smile without Lucy smiling back. I can't blame her.

"Look at you Mr. Author you." Juvia hugs me. "Got meetings to go to, book signings to attend."

"Yeah." I swallow hard. These are the hardest days. She's smiling but no one ever quite got their smile back.

"Come on, I'm starving." Grey throws his arms over mine and Juvia's shoulders and leads us to the tables. Grey has always been strong but something in him broke when Lucy died and I don't think that was ever coming back either.

"I'm star struck" the waitress, gasps fanning herself at the sight of me. "I've got none other than Natsu Dragneel, best-selling Author sitting at my table." She's got a bit of a southern accent

"Hey, Margo." I greet her. She sets out a coffee for me and she pours the creamer into Juvia's coffee for her. She can't pour her own creamer, there's things we just can't do because it hurts too much. Lucy used to open the fifteen creamers and fifteen sugars Juvia takes in her coffee. Juvia having to do it herself is just another reminder that Lucy isn't coming. Sometimes we slip up and we talk about Lucy as if she were just running late. We go through her Instagram a lot. That's probably not healthy but we can't move on, not in the way where we're supposed to live without her, as if she were some inconsequential piece of our life. Lucy was life embodied and I don't think anyone who knew her would dispute that.

So, we have coffee together a few times a week and I write. I still work at the restaurant because its one of the few things that makes me get out of my new studio apartment. Smaller is better, it doesn't feel so empty.

There's something ironic about all of this. I had the girl but not the life to give her. Now I have a promise of a future and I don't have the girl. I want the girl.

"I'd better get going." I finish off my coffee and leave a few bucks for my stuff.

"Are you sure?" Juvia asks, her brows drawn together in concern. She and Lucy are a lot of like. I don't know if Lucy picked up some of her gestures from Juvia or the other way around but sometimes it hurts too look at Juvia.

"Yeah." I swallow the lump in my throat and give Lucy and Grey a hug.

"I'll see you guys later." I start to pull away but Grey holds onto me.

"Juvia and I are proud of you, man." He says, "Lucy would be proud of you."

I nod and pull away.

"Yeah… she would be." I'd rather her be here with me.

I sit across from Mr. Garrety, my new writing agent, he smiles "your book is selling like hot cakes. But why did you kill her, why not have Lucy and Natsu walk into the sunset?"

I chew on my inner cheek. I got what I wanted. I published a best seller.

"Because people love tragedies." I say around the lump in my throat "and losing her was the greatest tragedy."

"So…" he brushes my words away, those particular ones weren't making him any money so why listen to them?

"What's the next project?" He asks me.

"Not sure yet." I tell him honestly. Maybe you're not supposed to be honest with your agent. Maybe I should have talked it up. I have a few projects but none of them are going to be as good as Lucy's story. Her story might not have been full of drama and have some great purpose or meaning but Lucy was simple and real and that's how everyone should know her.


Dear Lucy,

I don't know how to live without you because I simply can't live without you but here's the thing. I will keep living for you and that's really all I can promise you because when someone like you walks into a person's life and you teach them how to breathe and love and live, you can't expect them to live on their own anymore. It's like asking someone to live without a newly installed pace maker. You're my pace maker and then you just left so of course I can't keep my heart beating.

Anyway, I'm gonna do it for you, Lucy. I'm gonna live for you, because you asked me to, because you can't anymore and I believe that one day we're gonna meet again because it doesn't make sense to me that life would give me you and then take you away forever. So, I'm going to do what you did and I'm going to watch everything and I'm going to take pictures and when we meet up again I'm going to show you all of it.

Natsu,

P.s. I'll be counting the minutes.


"Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away mean forgetting"

-J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan


Thank you all so much for reading and sharing this ride with me. I hope you can find the time to review my book on it's now main platform.

I will Leave this up and hope others enjoy this story as well.

I am asking for reviews because this will be the beginning of my writing career and I desperately want to be an author. Reviews help others decide to buy the book and give it a chance so I am please asking that if you have the time to support me like you have done here I would greatly appreciate it

This work was one of the last things my mom was helping me edit before she passed and did not get to complete it the editing.

Love stories are not typically my strong suit but she was a romantic.

she loved a tragic story but not one where it's off and on again flings. this kind, where they love each other and the only thing that got in their way is fate.

My Mom's name was Barbara Maya. She was supportive in the best way she could be. she critiqued my work bluntly and without mercy. which hurt my feelings at time but i never had to worry if she liked it or not.

May 1964-November 2020

I was raised by my mom and grandma, my grandma is the one who was the most supportive and made me promise to give this career path my all and so i am trying my best.

Both people are raised me and offered me support in their own ways are gone. on my release day yesterday I wanted to be happy but it was honestly kind of sad for me. the two people who would have cried and who had seen me working from the time I was eleven years old to hone my craft and study writing were not there to celebrate it with me.

I would genuinely like to thank everyone who left kind words for me here and have been so supportive of me.

I really hope to see you here for future stories, maybe join me in my upcoming writing pursuits and I'd love to see you on my other social media, comment that you're from the fanfic and I'll follow back.

I can't thank you enough.

I wish and hope the best for all of you and hope this is not the last time we interact with each other.

Thank you

XOXO

p.s. i also have a contract with webnovel and this will be available (not the fanfic version) on there

Check out the full cover spread on my ig nunchigoya