[Kübler-Ross | Stage One | Denial]
Sundays were our day.
It's a luxury I never would have had back in the real world, to set aside time out of every week -- a whole day -- to spend with my family. My life was too unpredictable. It was a minor miracle every time I made it to work. A cause for celebration every time I didn't need to cancel out on plans...
Those have never been my strong suit, plans. I'm not sure why I really thought it'd be so different here. Maybe because everything else was. Maybe because I'd figured we'd gotten this far that it was okay to relax. To think beyond the next day. To make a future together. Stupid, right? Who makes a future in a place like this? But it's so easy to forget in the monotony of the day-to-day how cruel the Island can be -- how cruel life can be -- and around her... Around her it was so easy to forget about just about everything. My worries, my pain, the burden of guilt I shoulder at every waking moment... She'd smile, and for a moment it'd all just melt away, none of it seeming quite as important as the curve of her mouth or the way the light hit her eyes. And now...
I can't even remember what we were talking about. It didn't seem important at the time, because I thought there'd be other conversations to forget. But now it's been nagging at me for hours, and no matter how hard I wrack my brain, there's just... Nothing. I know we were at the waterfall, the very place I proposed last year on a whim. (I didn't even have a ring, then, the question just sort of fell out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop it -- plans, like I said. I have it now, though, the ring -- both of them, actually. My fingers are curled tightly around them in a fist, metal and wood and pearl digging into the palm of my hand.) We'd just finished a picnic lunch, and I said... Something, and she looked at me in that way of hers that told me without a word that I was being silly, but I feigned ignorance. A crooked smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she inched towards me, lifting a hand to cup my face once I was within reach, and I leaned into her touch, resting my hand over hers.
"I love you, Tiger," she said, and I believed it, both then in the moment and now in the present, that she loved me. That much, I remember, the certainty of knowing something was true. I told her I loved her, too, with the same conviction as she did, though the words were already half lost against her mouth as she kissed me. And then she was gone, and I was kissing a memory.
The rest of the day is a blur. I searched for her because I didn't know how not to, but by the time the sun sets, turning day into night, I've burned through the last of my denial. It's late when I stumble back home, wet and bloody from injuries I never even registered in my shock, and I'm struck with the sudden realization that she won't be there when I get in. That I won't have cause to sneak around on tip toe as to not wake her. That the bed I'll crawl into will be cold. I cough up the last of lunch in a bush, and remember it isn't the first time I've done that today. Numb, I walk up the steps to a house that once laid in ruin -- the one I rebuilt for her not even a year ago -- and know I won't be as simple to put back together again.
It's the small hours of Monday morning, and I'm alone.
It's a luxury I never would have had back in the real world, to set aside time out of every week -- a whole day -- to spend with my family. My life was too unpredictable. It was a minor miracle every time I made it to work. A cause for celebration every time I didn't need to cancel out on plans...
Those have never been my strong suit, plans. I'm not sure why I really thought it'd be so different here. Maybe because everything else was. Maybe because I'd figured we'd gotten this far that it was okay to relax. To think beyond the next day. To make a future together. Stupid, right? Who makes a future in a place like this? But it's so easy to forget in the monotony of the day-to-day how cruel the Island can be -- how cruel life can be -- and around her... Around her it was so easy to forget about just about everything. My worries, my pain, the burden of guilt I shoulder at every waking moment... She'd smile, and for a moment it'd all just melt away, none of it seeming quite as important as the curve of her mouth or the way the light hit her eyes. And now...
I can't even remember what we were talking about. It didn't seem important at the time, because I thought there'd be other conversations to forget. But now it's been nagging at me for hours, and no matter how hard I wrack my brain, there's just... Nothing. I know we were at the waterfall, the very place I proposed last year on a whim. (I didn't even have a ring, then, the question just sort of fell out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop it -- plans, like I said. I have it now, though, the ring -- both of them, actually. My fingers are curled tightly around them in a fist, metal and wood and pearl digging into the palm of my hand.) We'd just finished a picnic lunch, and I said... Something, and she looked at me in that way of hers that told me without a word that I was being silly, but I feigned ignorance. A crooked smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she inched towards me, lifting a hand to cup my face once I was within reach, and I leaned into her touch, resting my hand over hers.
"I love you, Tiger," she said, and I believed it, both then in the moment and now in the present, that she loved me. That much, I remember, the certainty of knowing something was true. I told her I loved her, too, with the same conviction as she did, though the words were already half lost against her mouth as she kissed me. And then she was gone, and I was kissing a memory.
The rest of the day is a blur. I searched for her because I didn't know how not to, but by the time the sun sets, turning day into night, I've burned through the last of my denial. It's late when I stumble back home, wet and bloody from injuries I never even registered in my shock, and I'm struck with the sudden realization that she won't be there when I get in. That I won't have cause to sneak around on tip toe as to not wake her. That the bed I'll crawl into will be cold. I cough up the last of lunch in a bush, and remember it isn't the first time I've done that today. Numb, I walk up the steps to a house that once laid in ruin -- the one I rebuilt for her not even a year ago -- and know I won't be as simple to put back together again.
It's the small hours of Monday morning, and I'm alone.