It should have been gray. That's all I could think. It should have been gray.
She was gone, yet the sun still shone. The birds still chirped. The wind still blew through my hair. But she was gone. Don't they know that? Can't they tell?
Or are they just mocking me. Mocking the pain that has an iron grip on my heart, and no intent of releasing. How could they possibly not know. I knew. I knew right away.
It wasn't an average morning. They didn't come home last night. They went to see her and they didn't come home. My sister was there when I awoke, and seeing her cemented what I knew. They didn't come home, she was here, and I was suddenly alone. I started to shake, and I couldn't support my own weight. She's gone. She's gone.
Now I'm sitting in the back seat of the car, the window open. There are people driving, and talking. People are out sitting on the patio of our favorite cafe on the corner. They don't know she's gone, but I do.
We arrive to her building. People are there too. They're talking and laughing, but have the sense to stop when they see us. They know she's gone too.
When we reach her room they, who weren't home, are cleaning the place. Her things are in boxes. I can't watch, so I sit in my spot. My spot in the window seats unchanged, and different all at once. It'll never be my spot again. This will never be her place again. We won't sing her, laugh her, or make tea here again. It's not ours. It's nothing now, so I look out the window.
The sun is still shining. I squint at it. Why are you still shining? Don't you know what has happened? But of course the sun doesn't know. Nobody seems to know.
So I just wait. I wait for it to have the decency to get dark. I want it to rain. To pour. I want the entire world to see the loss. To understand that it'll never be the same. She's jot here anymore. Who will play with me? Who will tell me stories? Who will eat ice cream with m? Make jokes with me? Protect me from the monsters?
I will, I guess. I will have to do it all for me.
I don't cry, she wouldn't like that. She never liked to see my brown eyes get glassy. Hush baby, she'd say, and make me wipe me tears. No tears. She wouldn't want that.
They're still not done packing, and the phone keeps ringing. She's not here. She can't answer, and she won't get back to you.
I go outside. I loved the swing on her porch. I wonder what will happen to it. Maybe they will let me keep it. We surely have room on our deck. There's a book sitting on the swing, and I pick it up. It's our favorite.
How do you spell love? The book asks me. I already know the answer.
You don't spell it, you feel it.
Then rain fell, the sky turned gray and I knew they knew.
