Sam & Ellie The Fall Before Spring

Part 8

The funeral was open-casket, his family was invited. She wasn't sure who was coming but she wanted some time before anyone arrived. She hadn't seen him yet. He had overdosed, intentionally. The fact only caressed her numb mind, unable to get a proper foothold. But it waited and she would have to face it eventually. Vanessa hovered but Ellie shook her head, she wanted- needed to be alone. The funeral director led her down the hall and into the venue, chairs were all set up. There were flowers and a table with some of Sam's favourite belongings; an old denim cap that he called lucky, a picture of them that he carried in his wallet and his favourite painting that she made, the one of her mother's flower box filled with almost but not quite blooming flowers. He had always said that he loved how she had captured the flowers at their precipice.

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"What do you think?" She asked as she stepped back, wiping her sweaty and paint-covered hands on her stained apron. Sam was quiet for so long Ellie turned to look at him. Fear gripping her. "If you don't like it you don't have to-."

"I love it," he breathed. Not turning to her, his eyes fixated on the canvas.

Ellie frowned to herself and turned back to the painting, looking for what warranted his fixation. She saw nothing. It was hardly her best work. She had recreated the flower box identically, which meant it looked rather sad and shabby as the woman in the painting hunched over it, her face obscured by her sun hat. The flowers weren't even in bloom so the colours were quite pale and mute, nothing like the vibrancy she captured in her painting of Sam surrounded by whirling leaves.

That was her favourite. It had taken her hours to capture the right expression and hold it in her mind. The way the colours surrounded him. The way the leaves looked drawn to him, yet naturally chaotic. Revolving and spinning in their own circles while also orbiting around Sam. It was magical. This, she looked back to the painting in front of her, this was mundane.

"Sam there's no need to lie." She said exasperated. He always talked up her worst pieces. She knew it was because he wanted her to be more confident in all her work but she had talked to him about it. She wanted his honest opinion.

"No, really, Ellie." He said finally looking back at her. "It's my favourite. You're so talented, I'm amazed. We're hanging this above our bed." He declared, gripping the canvas.

"Wha- no!" She squawked as she ran after him down the hallway. "Sam the paint is still wet!"

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Although he had never seen the painting of his blue eyes, something had told her it belonged there, with his other favourite things. The casket at the end of the aisle stole her attention. Drawn to it she walked, each step bringing her closer to being awake for the first time in days. Ellie would walk down the aisle to Sam, not in a white dress but a black one. She saw him and her heart dropped, her Sam. He laid there, pale and wrong, too young and beautiful to be there. So out of place. He should've been covered in wrinkles and she should've been surrounded by their children and grandchildren.

"Oh, Sam." She cried, running her hand over his cold pale face. His eyes were closed but he looked so far from peaceful. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed, her shoulders caving, her body shaking as she fought her closing throat, trying to breathe. Her sobs strangled off any other words she had thought to say and she sat by his casket for a while. Sobbing almost endlessly. She didn't know how to say goodbye.

How could she leave him? He doesn't need you anymore. The words rang true in her mind and after lots of counting and breathing and more counting, she stood and placed her hands on his ignoring the unnatural cold. Looking at his beautiful face, she sucked in a sharp breath and began her final goodbye to him, "I love you so much, and I wish," she wiped her face with the back of her sleeve struggling for words, "I wish this wasn't goodbye but it is." She placed the blue baby beanie in his casket. "Take care of him for me," she whispered, "Take care of each other." Then with trembling lips, she kissed his cold forehead and walked away.

His parents didn't attend the funeral. It was her and Vanessa, that was it and she said goodbye to the love of her life. The man with the sad blue eyes that would hold her heart forever.

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2 Years Later

Ellie stared at her empty apartment. The boxes were all packed and gone. Waiting for her, in a different place. She stared, waiting, watching the dust in the light as if she could see the memories unfolding before her. Some good, some bad but all of them. Sam and Ellie, all their story. Her heart still loved him, and it was still broken but she bore it, she learned to.

She remembered his blue eyes as she always would but now, she imagined them happy. Full of joy. She imagined his smile full and wide with his little left cheek dimple. His hair messy and free, like him. Free. Happy. Like they always wished, instead of being chained to his addiction. Sometimes she imagined him with a toddler on his hip, the toddler with his blue eyes and her butterscotch hair. Sometimes she imagined him with her mother, charming her, telling her stories of Ellie. She knew he was free of pain, and that was something he couldn't have had in this world. Something she never could've given him.

Her vision of Sam wasn't the only thing that had changed. Ellie had changed as well. Her skin was tanned from the heat of the end of spring sun. She had been out in the community garden plots and it had given her some colour. Her body was less fragile now. It was thicker, curvier. She smiled a little more, painted more but also cried and mourned more. The world was heavier and lonelier than it had ever been before but she continued. She would hang the picture of his sad blue eyes beside ones the painted ones she imagined more peaceful, still his eyes but no longer burdened.

There were still days when she came home and sobbed. New fears that sometimes drove her out of sleep. Mainly, the fear of forgetting. The fear of forgetting what he smelled like, how full her heart felt when he laughed, how his smile was always kind of crooked. There were moments when she caved and called his phone just to hear his voicemail, just to hear his voice. Mornings where she woke up and reached for him, for his comfort. Mornings when she reached for feeling whole again. She felt it in her heart, a piece gone. It would never be whole again. It was like running your hand across marble and feeling a chip that was carved out. Remembering that it was once there and that it was once smooth, the pang of something missing and knowing it would never be there again. Knowing it will never be smooth again. She often wondered if those things would ever change. If she would ever take off the beautifully delicate ring that always occupied her left ring finger. If she would ever find another person to love. She didn't know but what she did know is that she would move forward every single day, and smile for him, live for her and love for the both of them; the way she couldn't when he was alive.

OMGG HEYY!

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