My face turns pale and I feel faint…There is something so horribly familiar about this letter…Have I already seen this? Have I read his words before today? Have I heard these words spoken to me before? What is going on?
“Tristan? Are you feeling alright?” Hougon asks me with a look on his face that is trying to be concerned but just barely missing the mark.
“I-I need to go home for tonight,” I tell Detective Hougon as the color slowly returns to my cheeks and my eyes drift towards the door.
“Alright Tristan…Can you come in tomorrow?” Hougon asks.
“I’ll try,” I reply as I rise from the chair slowly and set the paper on his desk. I leave the room in an almost trance-like state. I look ahead of me but don’t see where I’m going. My thoughts were so loud I was blinded.
I somehow make it to my small apartment, and I crawl into my empty bed, in my cold and lonely room. As I lay under the blanket in the light of the ghostly moon, I stare at the ceiling, lost in my tormenting thoughts. Stuck inside my demented head, where everything is twisted; where nothing is right, and everything is wrong. I slowly drift off into the depths of sleep. I pray for a dream, but I only receive a nightmare.
I see myself in my bedroom, my bedroom in my home, my house. The one I shared with him, our first house together. I’m sleeping soundly with a content smile on my face, and he’s laying next to me. He has his arms around me as I sleep, and his chest is against my back. He kisses my neck while I sleep and whispers something in my ears, I’m not quite sure what he’s saying, it sounds muffled and distorted but I hear the words “Love”, “Sorry”, “Happy”, “Fault” and “Tonight”. I see myself open my eyes slightly and whisper to him as I turn my head, beaming brightly, “What?” He responds with an empty smile, “You’re so beautiful when you sleep Tristan.” I laugh softly and I turn my body to face his, I then I ask him, “Why is that?” He shrugs and replies, “You have that cute smile on while you sleep.” I smile and tell him, “I smile, because I have you.” He smirks and kisses my forehead, I then say to him, “And you’ll always have me…” He then tells me, “And you’re the only piece of heaven I deserve.” I smile and kiss his tender lips, but I feel an emptiness in return.
My eyes slowly open, greeted by the blinding sunlight pouring through the blinds and into my eyes. I groan and turn my body onto the other side, turning my back towards the light. I lay in the warmth of the bed for maybe ten minutes; just imagining that it was your body that was wrapped around mine. A tear rolls down my cheeks as I wonder why you felt the way you did. What did I do to make you think that way? What did I do wrong?
As I pull myself out of the blanket’s grasp, the cold air of the apartment causes me to shiver, and the blankets tempt me to fall back into them. I press on, my feet touch the bitter, and cold, wood flooring.
“That’s what I’ve been meaning to do,” I mumble as I try to adjust to the temperature change, “Get a carpet…”
I sigh as I make my way to the thermostat, it says seventy-seven degrees, which is odd, it feels like sixty, and might as well be. I shrug and leave it alone and then head to the kitchen. A warm cup of coffee should do the trick, maybe have a delicious cinnamon bagel on the side. Ah, sounds heavenly, especially since I didn’t have lunch or dinner yesterday.
As I arrive in the kitchen I notice something odd, There’s coffee already made, and it’s hot. I shake my head. “Must’ve made a pot before I went to bed,” I tell myself. Still, it was hot, and smelt fresh. No matter, I take the pot and pour the coffee into a ceramic cup. The steam rises off of the coffee; I then notice the cream and sugar are on the counter already, I don’t know why, I prefer my coffee black, but he, he always had to have cream and sugar. I put the cream, which still had condensation on the sides, back in the fridge, and placed the sugar back into the cupboard. I then grab my cup and take a sip of the bold, bitter, and richly flavored joe. I instantly think of all the mornings I sat across from him at the table; I remember how he’d read the paper and laugh about all the stupid things that would make the headlines and then always point out every grammatical error he could find. I think he liked to prove others wrong, but he never could prove me wrong, or he chose not to. Either way, these thoughts make me smile for a moment, but that smile turns into a frown; I know I’ll never have coffee with him again, I’ll never smile with him, never laugh with him, never talk to him, ever again. I sip the rest of my coffee, holding back my tears; tears, how they stain my cheeks quite too often.
I’m tired of wasting my evenings crying over his memory; I’m tired of hoping my tears will bring him back to me; My mind is ready to move on, but my heart can’t take it. As a tear falls from my eye, I feel a cold chill embrace me, wrap its air around my body and hold me still, and I swear I hear a whisper tell me, “It’s alright.” I only sob at this, I need him, I want him, I can’t hold up without him.
I go through work with almost no thought, and no comprehension of anything around me. I just do my job, no more and no less. I read and sign papers, I make phone calls, and I forwards information to the people who take care of it. It doesn’t really require too much thought or comprehension in the first place, so to everyone else, I was having a good day, but if anyone had thought to ask me how I was, they would get a surprising answer, too bad no one has ever asked.
As I finish my work, I punch out, and head towards my car, my cell phone rings. I pull it from my purse and look at the caller ID, and for a second I think it’s his number, so I answer the phone quickly and ask, “Hello?”
“Hello, Tristan,” a male voice responds, and for a moment I freeze, but my heart drops as I realize who it is.
“Hello Detective Hougon,” I reply with a sigh of disappointment.
“Must I ask again? Call me Roman,” Hougon replied with a chuckle.
“Alright,” I mumble in response. “Honestly, I think I can call you whatever I want punk,” I think as I roll my eyes, the dude sounded so cocky, so sure of himself, it aggravated me. I just hated this guy, I really hated him. This detective has been ruining my already ruined life, and it wasn’t fair. I had never done anything to this guy, to anyone, so why do I deserve this torture?
“I just wanted to check in on you, and see if you were still up to coming into my office today…I mean it’s just kind of late,” Hougon tells me.
“I have a job dumbass,” I think to myself, “This guy only cares about solving the case, again, and earning a couple bucks on everything he ‘discovers’. This jerk will never give a s**t about anyone but himself, will he?” I think quickly and respond with a weak voice, “Actually, I’m not feeling too good today…and I think I might have something…Wouldn’t want our valuable officers to get sick, all because of little old me; maybe tomorrow, if I’m feeling a little better, alright?”
Hougon pauses for a moment and replies with a suspicious tone, “Alright Tristan, tomorrow it is…Hope you feel better by then.”
“Thanks,” I say, feebly, and throw in a cough.
He hangs up as do I; I then look at the number Hougon called with, it was so close to his number, just one number off. He had a seven at the end, while Hougon had a one at the end. I shake my head, and arrive at my car. I enter the car slowly, and sit in front of the wheel for a few minutes, my thoughts trailing off. I close my eyes and shake my head. I reach into my purse and pull out the keys; I put the key in the ignition and start the car up; the car lets out a few coughs of its own, before beginning its steady purr. I sigh, this was his old car, we sold both of our cars to afford this thing; it was an old 1965 Shelby mustang. It was in good condition, after we used a too much of our money to restore it; Most people tell me to sell it, but they don’t realize how much this car put me and him through, they didn’t know that I loved him too much to sell his car, our project, our pain in the wallet but our favorite experience together.
As I arrive home after the stop-and-go traffic that a lot of workers have to suffer through (unless they work too much, or too little), I notice the light is on in my apartment. I see a shadow pass through the light, and the curtains sway gently. I pause for a moment, and then grab my phone out of my purse; as I look back up at my window, the light is off, and there’s no movement in the curtain. I look at my window, puzzled, “How strange…Must’ve thought my neighbor’s window was my own…” I slowly put my cell phone back into my purse, and enter the apartment complex.
As I make my way up the stairs to my room on the third floor, I feel what I thought was a hand on my back, gently helping me up, as if there to help me. He used to do that, not only when we went up stairs together, but whenever we walked together. He always wanted me to know he was there for me, and that he was with me, but he wasn’t here anymore.
I arrive at my door, room number 037, that was my number; 37, that’s how old he said he’d be when he would take all of his savings and take me away on a two-week cruise, treat me to an exotic dinner and serenade me on the beaches of Peru; 3, that’s how many times he proposed to me, and the third time was the charm; 7, that’s how long we were married, before he took his life.
I enter my room and sit down on the left side of the love-seat, the couch for two. I always sat on his right, that’s where he liked me to be. I think about this and then move myself to sit in the very center of the couch. I know I’m just pathetic, I find a way for everything to remind me of him. I just can’t help it, when everything around me holds memories of him, of us.
At that moment I decide, this is enough. I know now, what I will do. I will sell everything we had, everything. Then I can forget him, then I can find myself again, then I can move on.
After my microwave pasta dinner, I brush my teeth, and change into one of his old shirts, and one of his old shorts. This will be the last time I sleep with his scent; This will be the last time I engulf myself with his belongings.
I shift into the bed, and make myself comfortable under the sheets that we had shared for so long; I smile weakly as I think of all the memories we made under these sheets. How he held me close at night, and how we shared our body heat, and would never be cold; but now I was the only one there, and it was so cold under the sheets, by myself.
I curl up under the covers and hold his shirt close to my face and smell his sweet smell, and I feel him there, lying next to me, once more. I feel a warm embrace, as sleep pulls me under her influence.
I see myself in that room, on that one day. That day that haunts every fiber of my being, the day that destroyed us both. I see him sitting at the desk, and I’m there, standing right next to him. He’s writing a letter, I try to read it over his shoulders, and all I mange to read is, “I will love you always.” He folds the letter quickly as he finishes it. He stands and takes a few steps away from the desk. He kneels and pulls up a floorboard. He places the letter in the space, and from the space, he pulls out a gun. He stands, and turns to me. He speaks to me, but I hear nothing. I’m frozen. I stare at the gun, I could stop him, I should, but I can’t move, I can’t speak. Distraught, I look up into his face and in his eyes; I see he is desperate, stressed, sad, but angry. He begins to yell at me, and I start to cry in response. He slaps me across the face and yells a command at me; I only cry. He screams, furious, and pushes me away; I catch myself as my back slams against the edge of the desk. He walks towards me and grabs me by my shirt and pulls me up and away from the desk. He says something to me that makes me whimper and writhe. He shoves the gun in my hand-
 Ookami_Oshima · Thu Jun 11, 2009 @ 01:47am · 3 Comments |
