this drug called love

Love is a drug—addictive, consuming, impossible to quit

The sun dips into a blue sea stained red yellow orange. Clouds pink cotton candy. Waves splash softly on the shore, whispers the mind imagines undecipherable.

Breeze blows gently. Two people sharing one silence walk in the sands, shoes in their hands.

Breeze stops blowing. Two people sharing one silence fade into one person basking in infinite reruns of the same memory.

***

The stars are out, all twenty of them.

One door opens.

Paws skitter on wooden floors, waiting to greet two, meeting one.

One pair of hands scratch one dog, one pair of hands scratch one dog, one pair of hands hang one coat on a hook.

One hook with one coat. One hook that missed its companion.

Feet patter into a new room. The kitchen.

Hands make a coffee, mind makes missing having another cup to pour it into—another step in the routine of life.
Ears hear silence, mind hears chatter.

***

1 year has 365 days.

It’s been 1461 days.

Not enough.

Time heals, they said,

time heals
time soothes
time forgets.

They were wrong.

Time can heal, she says,

time can heal, only if you do
time can soothe, but it knows consent isn’t a suggestion
time can forget, but you need to first

and if she doesn’t

         time  couldn’t  time wouldn’t  time shouldn’t.

***

It’s not today.

No.

Today can’t be faced yet.

Let’s go back.

***

BEFORE
two hundred and forty seven days left
  —rooftops; breeze; city lights—
She stands, facing the city, he turns his back on it.

His hair is swept backward by the breeze, hers is blown into her face.

Two people, on a rooftop coloured by city lights, sharing one silence.

A silence stemming from comfort.

A silence that costs a lifetime’s worth of words.

two hundred and one days left
  —campfires; tenting; dark forests—
She laughs, a sound carried into the darkness of the night beyond.

He smirks, a quiet that conveys a thousand feelings.

Little moments, dozens

tiny frames, hundreds

one movie of their story, their life lives.

one hundred and thirty three days left
  —sunsets; conversation; pets—
The sun dips into the sea.

Two people are on the beach, shoes forgotten somewhere in the past stretching behind them.

Two people sharing tangential conversations walk the sands.

She’s pointing at things, seashells and birds and waves and funny-shaped clouds.

He’s laughing at her pouting at him correcting her. “That’s not a seagull,” he smirks, “there aren’t any such things.”

Now, now she’s squealing because he’s just said that he signed the adoption forms for a rescue puppy.

one hundred days left
  —make up; takedown; hospitals—
She smears a pink gloss onto her lips.

The puppy sits at her feet, head whipping between her and the footsteps outside the bedroom door, the footsteps it knows is hanging a coat on a hook. He doesn’t know yet that he’s allowed to move without supervision.

He walks in. Scratches his neck, unsure.

“Love. I need to tell you something,” his voice stretches the last word, holds on to it, whispers it into the air.

She stops at his tone. Looks at him. Tilts her head.

“I’ve been having this… pain on my left side for a while. I went to the hospital earlier, took a test, some scans…”

He stares at the ceiling. She shakes her head. He says, “Love, I’m so sorry.”

They both look at each other. A second  a  minute    a n  e  t  e  r  n  i  t  y  and the tears come, unwanted, uncalled for, but here to stay.

A movie cut short, because the starring role has disappeared.

Denial is a pretty, pretty thing, decked up in pretty, pretty lies, and they want it to swallow them, their reality, their lives, and give them a fantasy to wrap themselves in.

fifty seven days left
  —bargaining—
She hears him pulling back the curtains in their bedroom, and wipes the tears off of her face.

He smiles at the sun on his skin and the sound of her moving in the kitchen.

A smile that crumbles when his shoulder spasms and he’s reminded of the near–too–soon future.

A future of lives he would be too busy being lifeless to see.

“Keep yourself together for years,” he whispers.

The puppy gambols in a chase after its tail.

In the kitchen, she whispers a prayer to hope. “Keep him with me for years, please.”

When he finally enters, she offers him a mug of coffee.

         twenty nine days left
  —pretense—
She laughs at everything, he smiles at nothing.

The puppy clings to the both of them, blissful in its ignorance.

It's the same as before but the walls are breaking.

He winces at nothing, she grins at everything on the blank TV screen in an effort not to notice.

She fakes sleep when he wakes up in cold sweats.

The walls are fading.

seventeen days left
  —acceptance—
They give up all pretense.

He jokes about himself.

She jokes about herself too.

The puppy laughs through it all.

There’s no cure like self–deprecating humour when the self is deprecating.

five days left
  —going—
They’re stealing moments from lives on screen.

four days left
The three of them curl up on the couch and eat junk food.

three days left
two days left
one day left
  —gone—

one day. He’s gone. Gone in a flurry of pain and joyless, precious, moments spent together.

***

AFTER
         day one. chapter two.
He’s gone, she thinks.

That’s all she can.

day two
day three
day four
She curls up on the couch with their her puppy, and tries to eat.

day five
She’s trying to watch moments from other lives on screen.

***

And the thing is, if she stops revelling in the memories, they’ll become ghosts. Ghosts of a now–haunted past dreaming about a now–unattainable future.  Ghosts of a lifetime in six years spent with a ghost-too–soon person. Memories that’ll become ghosts.

They’ll fade, she can feel it.

She’ll forget the way his mouth curved upwards when he spotted her in a crowd. The exact rumble of his laugh. The way he woke up and immediately looked for her in the mornings, hair falling over eyes dulled by sleep.

She doesn’t want to forget, doesn’t want to lose the little things, the little quirks in their relationship that scrawled their mark all over it.

She knows, she knows the big milestones, the first year of monthsaries, the five anniversaries, the one year mark for their wedding. They’re hers, theirs, and they will die with her. But the magic, the memory of the small, that tries to slip away because he’s ghosting now, isn’t he?

She wants to get high on this drug called love all over again, and let it cocoon her in their fake reality.

So she won’t move on.

She will remember him, thank him everyday for giving her small eternities a day for six years, and keep him alive in the most insignificant ways until she herself isn’t anymore.

***

It's finally today.

1461 days and still not enough to wane the grief and longing and let it transition to joyful remembrance.
1461 days of cupping the sorrow and cradling it to her bosom, wearing it like a second cloak.

***

day one thousand four hundred and one
  —gone—
Flowers in hand. Hat on head. Shoes on feet.

Steps all slow.

She stares at her flowers.

She knows the day it is, not the day it is.

Doesn’t see the clouds grey, solid-esque, low-hanging, doesn’t notice the way people clutch umbrellas to themselves, isn’t aware of an inconspicuous car making rounds on the street, or the way people quicken their pace when it slows down.

She barely realises it’s raining now.

The street empties.

What ifs always hurt, so she wonders about moments long gone.

Fake smiles given generously to the waiter who was too full of himself.
Laughing in the waters of an empty pool.
Running in the rain just because and hailing a taxi that wasn’t really one. The car made a turn and slowed.
Spending whole days in boring bookstores because they were are the only places with proper air–conditioning.
Eating in cars because it's too hot to get out. It stopped, and a person got out of it.
Tickling each other until they both rolled roll on the floor in stitches.

She remembers the way he covered covers her eyes to right before whipping out a silly little gift to surprise her and even now

she’s surprised because somebody’s hands are on her eyes and for a  f r a c t i o n  of a second she believes she’s wished him back hard enough, that he’s holding her and taking her grief away and she feels lighter and—

and she’s suddenly heavy again because he would never press a knife into her and she can feel it, cold metal against the warm skin on her neck.

She doesn’t even think to scream, but, oh look, hands are over her mouth as well. Two people.

She doesn’t even think to think, to register the fact that two people are trying to take her senses away from her in the most stupid way imaginable.

She doesn’t notice the quick prick of a needle against her wrist.

Her hands are bound to her body, and she offers no resistance. None at all as they shove her into the back seat of the stilled car, that screeches away from the curb a minute later.

Fight or flight kicks in—too late.

And now, she learns what it really feels like to panic.

A fear so primal, so embedded in her biology that fighting it is a smart man’s venture, and haven’t the last four years proved enough times that she isn’t?

She isn’t smart.

And, oh god, oh god, oh god, she can’t move she can’t move she can’t move.

What is this wetness running down her cheeks is she crying is she is she is she?

It's the rain, cool on her heated skin and the rough car carpet turns to solid ground littered with tiny pebbles, and the rope binding her vanishes and she’s just not able to move and she knows, knows in her bones, she’s going she’s as good as gone she’s gone.

Somebody yells.

“SUDDEN ADULT DEATH SYNDROME!”