left with me are wisps of you / a scent in the air. it catches me on weekdays, mostly, and holds me there.
it had been nineteen years. nineteen years - soon to be twenty - and still, the night that she had lost him was as fresh in her mind as if it had occurred just yesterday. there wasn’t much that romy could really be sure of, anymore, but she knew as well as she did that the sun would rise each morning that for the remainder of her long sad life, she would never be able to dull the memories sharp edges. she would always remember. it would always hurt. this was her burden to bear.
as much as she WANTED to, she would never be able to rid herself of the ghost that was that night. she could tell herself as much as she wanted that she was thinking of him less and less - that she was moving on - but the fact remained that all she needed to do was close her eyes to conjure up the image she wished she could recall, of his warm smile and crinkled eyes and all she needed to do was fall asleep for the memory that burned, of his broken, bruised, bloodied body. wet nights after heavy rainfall reminded her of how it had been along tiny town’s side lane they had been walking down. loud noises were all it took for her to recall the door that had been shoved open behind them slamming against the stone walls. all it took to remember the sound of bone on bone, when the humans had descended.
nineteen years ago, she had been engaged to a man that had stolen her heart when she was little more than a girl, and had taken it with him when he was robbed of his life. she would think of him, ALWAYS, and she would live with the choices she had made in the aftermath, forever - she didn’t have her ring to remember him by, because she had laid it to rest with him in his shallow grave. she would never know their kids, because she had known, even then, that without him she would fail to be the parent they deserved. she could remember him, she could remember them, and she could spend every day wishing that things were different, but she had made peace with the fact that he would NEVER return to her long ago.
which was why it was unnecessary - cruel - evil - for someone, some blasted child, to take his face. pulling wide her apartment door, romy’s heart had torn afresh, blue gaze meeting brown that lived now only with theo. she clutched the door - needing it’s support - and she struggled to find her words though her lip trembled in what she couldn’t be sure to be anger, or sadness, or some strange mix of a dozen emotions. a delicate “abe,” slipped past her lips and she had to force herself to remember that it couldn’t be.
“however way you found that face-”
it couldn’t. it wasn’t possible.
“whatever game this is, to you- drop the facade.”
“drop it now. before i do something you’ll regret.”