Adam & Eve

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Six Months Later

It had been six months since Eve was placed in her final resting place. She had meticulously planned her funeral, picked the plot, and even picked the color scheme for the flowers and the invitations to her viewing—marbled black white with a trim of gold and bright pink. Only Eve would come up with a festive theme for the event of her death.

Adam imagined she'd have given planning their wedding the same attention to detail she always gave everything in her life and towards the end in theirs, the same love she brought to those around her. It never ceased to amaze Adam what a fantastic person she was. She was. Speaking of her in the past tense was not something he would ever get used to. He discovered Eve had known she was dying when she walked through his door that Tuesday morning. When cancer came back the second time, it had already spread, and no amount of chemo could have saved her. She chose not to dash his hopes that night when he'd pleaded with her to fight. She'd lied to him about going for her chemo rounds. Whether it was the weakness of her kindness to him depends on the perceptive. He wondered if he would ever get the answer to that question.

She left because she didn't want the love of her life to see her fading away in front of his eyes. Maybe that was her vanity, or perhaps that was her mercy, but she wanted to die on her terms.

Adam had not opened the book or the letter she'd left him. He couldn't bear to. Opening them meant accepting she was gone. Every morning he woke up and rolled over, reaching for his phone expecting that text from her, and for a split second, there was hope again, his Evie was alive and waiting for him...until the memories came flooding in and the weight of reality fell on his chest like a ton of bricks. Whoever said time heals all didn't know jack shit. But what they should have said was time makes the horror of it fade just a little because it did.

The pain was still there, not a sharp, hot knife piercing his heart, robbing his breath but a nagging ache at the base of his chest, which never let up. It was there, always there. He had begun to identify that pain as his constant companion, his friend.

Adam didn't feel the need to drown his sorrows in a bottle or the arms of a stranger. He barely remembered the man he was before Eve. He buried himself in work and making the dream he and Eve dreamt a bigger success than even they'd imagined it would be. That was his life now. Her legacy was his purpose. She wasn't there to see it through, so he must. That's what he told himself.

The album aptly named Adam & Eve catapulted to fame, and in the wake of Eve's tragic death and the news of their undying love for each other, everyone was talking about them and their music. Adam normally shied away from the limelight, but he embraced it this time. He felt her presence everywhere when he talked about her. And he wanted to talk about her a lot.

David, who had practically moved in with him for months, had decided to go home to his wife and kids while he still had them to go home to. It took some convincing, but it was a relief not to see his friend slumping over Adam's couch every evening working on his laptop, drinking ginger ale, and eating beef jerky for dinner. When David was sure, Adam was not going to fall back on his bad habits. Or take his own life, which seemed like a real possibility the first few days after Eve's death, he agreed to vacate the premises emphasizing he would come back at the first sign of anything he didn't like. Adam breathed a sigh of relief to walk into an empty home. Looking around his lonely house, which was once filled with laughter, music, and the fragrance of home-cooked meals, he longer felt desolate, just sad but resigned. He missed his Eve, and for a brief second, he wished David was still here, but only for a brief moment.

He sat down and picked up the soft, worn leather-bound book and felt the aged cover beneath his fingers. His eyes welled with tears. When he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her warmth rising from the skin of the book to his fingers. He opened the pages and found her delicate handwriting within. He could smell her within those pages, that soft sweet scent that was seared his soul all those days and nights. The pain was real, but so was the peace of knowing he had her heart in his hands. This book was her beating heart beneath his palm. He could feel it reaching out to him through his touch.

He opened his eyes and smiled at the letter which said "READ ME" in big letters.

He opened it and began to read.