All Again

A Morning, 2004

Jamie had planned ahead; she buried the calendar for a reason, she called off work for the day, she even refused to glance the morning paper for fear she'd remember the date.

Everything that could've been done in preparation for today had been done. And yet today arrived and she's sat here helplessly in her bed, staring mindlessly at the spot beside her that was once so full of love and life. Her breathing is shallow and slow, her eyebrows slightly knitted in thought. It's painful to linger on it now, laying so empty and barren—like a wilted garden—after losing the woman who filled that space and so much more in Jamie's life.

Lord knows how long she's been here just staring, time could've stopped and it wouldn't have made a difference. Jamie wouldn't have noticed with her legs crossed, hunched over on her elbows, tracing her finger over the wrinkles in the sheets over and over again. Continuous, simple, and filling—a task built solely to keep her mind off all she lost. Except it isn't fucking working.

Jamie is painfully aware of what day it is. It doesn't matter how deep she buried the calendar, or how many months ago she called off work for the day, or the headlines she missed just for a peace that never came. It was all a fruitless diversion to preoccupy Jamie's state of mind. It doesn't change the fact today is still the day she lost Dani Clayton; her wife, her best friend, the love of her life. Still the day that'll go down in torturous infamy.

Four years ago, instead of waking to her lover, she woke to an empty bed and a messily scrawled letter on the opposite bedside table.

'I love you with every piece of me left.'

And with that, she was gone... well, physically gone. Because dead doesn't really truly mean gone. Dani lives on forever in Jamie—almost immortalized, as she'll never be fully untangled from Jamie, like bulbs that's roots never fully die away every winter. And that's okay with Jamie.

But it is painful—the amount of emotions that pile infinitely on top of Jamie, everything she holds and balances for herself and for Dani. It wouldn't have mattered how tired Jamie was last night, she knew she wouldn't have been able to sleep even if she wanted to. Her mind was wide awake, replaying every encounter, every piece from her life that even vaguely looked like Dani.

Her eyes hang raw now, exhausted from a whole night spent up and crying. Her stomach rumbles impatiently, her head aches, and her hands... well, they're still tracing the crinkles of the unmade bed.

Jamie just can't forget. And these pictures and moments she remembers from the last nearly eighteen years of her life usually float by in sections. They come in bursts, or they'll whisper at a certain smell or phrase. And while Jamie is thankful she has these pieces of Dani hung in frames in her heart, it can become very overwhelming at times. Since she remembers it all; the good, the bad—and sometimes those two concepts are inseparable when it comes to loss.

Jamie remembers a couple years ago when her and Owen went out for breakfast and ordered some coffees—a nice morning together before Owen took off on his trip to Paris the following week. Everything was fine until Jamie tasted the coffee, and it was so awful, she spit it back into the cup.

And it reminded her of Dani.

And she felt her face melt like wax off a candle, and harden there as she cried and cried and cried. The whole bloody restaurant probably just sat and stared, but can she blame them? Her face sunken into the palm of her hands, her sobs coming from a sadly smiling, broken mouth. It was just like Dani, one of those little things that Jamie would never ever forget, and Owen had to bring her home before they could even order their breakfast. She was a godawful mess.

But while it made Jamie's heart feel longer, forever pulled like taffy, it made Dani feel closer. Jamie wouldn't have chose to skip coffee that morning if given the chance. Anything that reminds her of Dani is worth the consequential devastation that rages within her.