We’ll survive this, won’t we? I wonder, and Lennon speaks up as if she’s read my mind, but really, she’s only responding to my last comment.
“We have to,” she finally says after a few moments of silence. “We have no other option.”
Chapter Eleven
Lennon
I’m living in my own personal hell, a nightmare I can’t seem to wake from. Shock and anxiety have become my best friends and never leave my side. They’re determined to swallow me whole and smother me until I’m no longer here. One moment, I’m okay. The next, I’m so lost and broken I feel as if I’m dying from the inside out. My heart hurts, and heaviness weighs on me while I drown in emptiness. No one understands this from my perspective. How could they?
I’ve cried myself to sleep the past two nights at the reality I’ll never see him again. I try to remember his voice and think about how he’d make sure to tell me good night before we went to bed. The past few mornings have been the worst, though, because I dream of him and wake up to a new day without him in it. The smell of Brandon is already fading, and though it’s only been two days since the accident, I already feel as if he’s slipping through my fingers. The thought of my love becoming nothing more than a memory causes tears to well on the edge of my lids. I’m surprised I have anything left.
The last conversation I had with him plays on repeat in my mind. One of the last things he said before driving away was how much he loved me. Every chance he had, he told me how much I meant to him, and I only wish I could see him or kiss him or hold him again. Just one more time.
I sit up on the couch, careful not to step on Hunter. He hasn’t left my side because I can’t find the courage to sleep in my bed.
Brandon and I were supposed to get married, have kids, and grow old together. We were going to have a million grandchildren and spoil them rotten. We dreamed big, and it always included each other. I believed with every fiber of my being that he was the man I’d be with for the rest of my life. This was supposed to be the beautiful beginning of our love story, not the fucking end. Not the end.
But it is the end…
I gasp, and I feel as if I can’t breathe as the weight of it all comes pounding down again.
Tears threaten to pour out, but this time, they’re accompanied by anger. I force myself to stand, walk around Hunter’s body, then go to the bathroom. My movements are robotic as if I’m on autopilot because essentially, I am. I eat and breathe because I have to, not because I want to. The hollow shell of me goes through the motions of living, but I don’t know how I’ll ever move on from this.
The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that my kids at school need me. I hold on to that like a life jacket, and right now, it’s saving me from drowning.
I turn on the light and look in the mirror at a zombie version of myself with puffy eyes and a red nose. I’m in a constant state of sadness, but somehow, I force myself in the shower. I turn on the water as hot as it’ll go, hoping it will steal the place of the constant pain I feel inside my heart, but it’s no use. For the first time in my life, I shower in silence. I lean against the wall and allow the stream to fall over me, to snap me out of this, but it’s no use.
The water goes cold, the only indicator I’ve been in here long enough, and I step out of the shower and dry off. I put on a dress and some flats, an outfit I’ve worn for class a half dozen times. After I blow-dry my hair, I pin it back so I look somewhat put together. Though I try, no amount of concealer will cover the dark circles under my eyes or the redness on my face, so I give up.
I walk into the kitchen, see Brandon’s mug on the counter, and instantly start crying. Grief is a bitch and slaps me as the memories of us drinking coffee together flood in.
I try to hold back my tears as best as I can because I don’t want Hunter to hear me. Ironic considering he’s heard me crying the past two days. He’s the only person who somewhat understands the loss I’m feeling. My sisters came over to comfort me, but I had nothing to say, so we just sat in awkward silence. No words can describe how broken and lost I am. I feel as if I’m unrepairable.