Gone
ASHA
“Asha, please. Please, just—”
The bed dipped as Sasha’s slight weight sat down beside me. Trying again to coax me to a place of normalcy I’d never touch again. I refused to open my eyes despite the way I could feel it on my face. I felt wrong to feel its warmth when I knew he was somewhere alone and cold.
Why did you lie to me?
“Just what? Just what?” I was irritated. Told her I wanted to be alone but she was pushing again.
“I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“I’ve never lost someone I loved before.” The realization hit me even harder having to say it out loud when I barely got enough time to express it to him. The person who should have heard it and felt it. “I’ve never lost something I loved before. And I’m angry.”
“Angry? At the world?”
I sat up so fast that I startled her, and she moved away from me. I had to squint to put her into focus and even that barely helped.
“At Ori! He promised me! He promised me that he would never leave. How could he break my heart like that? Make me love him and then leave? What type of sick joke—”
Her face crumbled, filled with pity that made me want to lash out at her as well. “It’s not like he had a choice, Asha.”
“Yes, he did!”
Widened eyes identical to mine stared back at me as though I’d finally lost my last marble. “Asha!”
I threw my pillow off the bed angrily because I was tired of people trying to fit my emotions into a box of common sense.
“I’m serious. He could’ve done more. Something.
Made better decisions. Ori is a god. He had to be to win my heart the way he did.
No mere mortal could’ve broken through every barrier that I erected and brought me back to life.
Only deities have the power for rebirth.
And that’s what being with him gave me. A second chance at life that I never thought I would ever get or want.
Me, your sister who hates all men was someone completely changed.
My husband is a god and gods don’t fall. He should’ve done more.”
I broke down then. The realization of what I’d lost washed over me all over again.
The depth of his absence was something that I would never come to grips with.
I felt my sister’s arms around my shoulders and she held me as I sobbed.
My body shook and I tried to gasp for air to fill my lungs all while tears rolled down my face.
Her chin was on the top of my head and she was squeezing me so hard like she was trying to eject the pain and sorrow from my body by force.
Her arms went around me and I just knew she was freaking out but she didn’t want to leave me alone.
This was more than she could handle and I knew it but I couldn’t make myself stop.
“I know how you feel. Wait, no, that’s minimizing your emotions.
I understand how you must feel right now.
And as happy as I am that he made you happy I have to worry about you right now.
You that’s still here among the land of the living. ”
“Pfft, this isn’t living.” I wiped my face with my hand trying to regain a semblance of self-respect.
“Not currently. But you have to. Because he wouldn’t want you to feel like this. To hurt like this.”
I frowned at her because she was completely wrong about that. “Yes, he would. He’s somewhere smirking with his giant arrogant head pleased that he could bring this out of me.”
“I’m not going to refute anything you said because this is the most you’ve spoken in a week. Now, are you going to get out of bed today?”
“For what?”
I could see her struggling to find some reason that would will me out of bed and there just wasn’t anything there. “I don’t know… to live—”
“And I’m supposed to care about that? How pitiful do I sound?
How…ridiculous? Besotted. I let my life be consumed by one person so fast and now I’m adrift without him.
I’ve been wallowing in my sadness for days.
What a disappointment I’ve become. The one thing I swore I’d never be I’m her.
And my punishment for forsaking who I swore I’d never be was to lose everything that had changed me.
And now I’m gutted a bloody shell of who I was and no direction as to where to go. ”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s how I feel.”
“Love isn’t a punishment, Asha.”
I flopped back on the bed in the guest room I now occupied.
It was too much to sleep in our bed alone.
I was glad it hadn’t been painted the haint blue Ori had thought to paint it.
I could deal with Wilbur’s ghost if it meant I had the chance of being visited by his.
It had been weeks and he still hadn’t come back.
The silence was too loud for me. No heavy footsteps interrupting my focus.
His scent fading everyday making it impossible to want to stay here.
“It’s also not supposed to hurt like this, Sash.
Nothing is supposed to hurt like this. We aren’t meant to survive pain like this.
” I lifted my head, trying to stem the tears so I didn’t have to cry yet again.
“Are you saying you don’t want to?” Sasha tried to sound calm but I knew she was worried about the implications of my words.
“I’m not about to take a header off the balcony if that’s what you’re worried about.” I was honest because if I ended myself Ori would meet me as I transitioned and be angry with me. There was no reason to want forever with someone who would be pissed at what I’d done.
Sasha seemed so relieved at my confession but she didn’t move away like she was still worried that what I said was just lip service. “I had to ask. You seem to want to.”
“I do. I won’t but thank you for your due diligence. That desire to not be here is the one thing that scares me the most. The one thing that lets me know how deeply he got to me.”
“What do you mean?”
I leaned back against the headboard my eyes on the ceiling, hating that she was making me talk about this.
“Even in the most trying of times faced with the very worst, I wanted to live. I fought to. I killed to. And right now, there’s no fight.
There’s no desire. Everything feels so heavy, Sasha, and yet somehow I’m supposed to go on.
If love was meant to feel this way when you lost it, no one would risk it.
Because the aching… the aching is unbearable. ”
Sasha bit her lip as the worried look on her face intensified. “Maybe you should come back home—”
“I don’t want to go to London. I’ll sit there and stare at the ceiling and think about everything I don’t have.
Of the warmth that once filled the spot beside me but no longer exists on this plain.
I’ll think about everything that I’m going to miss.
The heavy footsteps he used to stomp down the corridor to announce that he was home.
He did it to annoy me but also to ensure that I wasn’t startled by his presence.
The man could move around as quietly as a mouse if he wanted but he considered me and my past to ensure he never became an unnecessary trigger for what I’d been through. ”
“He was a very good man.”
“Not just that. Everything he touched was remarkable.”
“Let me help you.”
“No. You need to be off somewhere finding your own happily ever after. Not sitting here watching me weep because mine fell apart.” She leaned over and wrapped her arms around me and I let her comfort me as best should could.
I patted her arm hoping she would find some comfort in the action and that it would lessen her worry.
“We share everything, Asha.” Her words were muffled into my hair as she tried to squeeze life back into me.
“But we cannot share this. I wouldn’t want to even if I could because I wouldn’t wish this on someone I hated yet alone someone I love. This, this desolation, is solely mine.”
That day in my house had been the impetus for me getting help to work through my grief.
I was forever grateful that Sasha had paused her life to look after me.
I could never repay her even though I knew she would never ask.
After sitting through the meeting with Ori’s family as they made a bid to take over his seat, I had to refocus on what life would look like now.
Revenge was my motivation and the list was long.
Longer than simply Theo and James, I had my own personal list that I knew would make Ori proud.
My sister always wanted me to speak to our mother so I was going to do just that but on my terms. I’d spoken with Matty and Faith to assist me in making this meeting happen.
I wasn’t all that eager to have it happen but it was necessary.
One call to Vanya helped put me into contact with Xerxes to ask him for his help.
Imagine my surprise when a file was sent to me within an hour from Alec of all people.
I’d browsed through it getting angrier but then a feeling of love washed over me.
Ori was protecting me even though he wasn’t here.
His brothers were going to ensure that I would be alright and despite my broken heart it gave me a measure of comfort.
Which is why we were now sitting at a booth in the Sunbird, which had been closed for the night so I could hold this meeting in private.
Her cup clattered to her saucer and I flinched as the sound reminded me that she was even here.
It took a lot for me to be willingly in her presence but I was here, allowing her to gloat over what she perceived as my lowest moments.
She’d complimented me on how gaunt I looked, saying it was a vast improvement over the near-obese way I’d looked on my wedding day.
She’d insulted me and brought up the wedding as a way to hurt me but it was impossible.
Her barbs were nothing compared to the pain I lived through everyday.
I was even more unbothered by her bullshit than usual.