47
I clutch the gold pocket watch in my hand. The metal sides dig painfully into my skin. I wind the watch, my breath tight as the gold second hand springs to life. The ticking lurches forward, jarring the timepiece out of its hibernation.
Four months.
I left Aaron for four months.
And now he’s gone.
It’s worse than that though. Worse than I ever could have imagined.
A numbness seeps through me, as if I’ve been left out in the ice and the snow and the cold has traveled into my bones and settled deep in my marrow.
I remember the night my dad died. Daniel called, and as soon as he spoke the words a wave of shock struck me and jarred me out of myself. The pain was too much. It was so much that I couldn’t feel it at all. It’s like when you touch a hot pan and you can’t decide whether it’s burning hot or icy cold. For days I was numb. Just a walking, talking human with blood pumping in my veins, a heart beating in my chest, and no way to let myself cry. No way to let myself fall apart.
The numbness held me like the deepest grip of winter.
The same happened when Joel told me he was married.
And the same happened when my mum left me, just dropped me on my dad’s front steps, and didn’t look back.
I know this numbness, this shockwave of despair, so deep that your mind can’t accept it. I’ve felt it before.
But I can’t accept the despair. Because if I do he’ll be gone—they’ll be gone. Everything. Even me.
I huddle in the center of my bed, my bedroom as dark as a tomb, the moonlight shrouded by a veil of black clouds. I breathe in the faded scent of lavender, as worn as dried flowers forgotten and crumbled into dust.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please.”
Before, when I fell asleep, I went to him. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I always went to him, even though it should never have been possible.
Please.
He said he’d be there, holding out his hand to me. He promised.
I didn’t know that when I left, I’d left him alone treading water, when I’d promised to always come for him.
I didn’t know.
There’s a black wave rushing toward me, a tsunami of thought and emotion I can’t think about. I can’t feel. I won’t.
The images on the computer screen. The photographs. The words. They blur together in a tidal wave threatening to crash over me and drown me.
I push it away.
I’ll dream tonight.
I’ll go to Aaron.
And in my dreams he’ll be there.
They all will be.
I fall back into the deep folds of my mattress. letting the weight of the duvet settle over me. The cold, dark air falls silent. I pray for heat. I pray for humidity. I pray for a sea-salt breeze. I close my eyes and I pray, Please, please, please?—