I think it's funny, how when it's all said and done, it all just comes back in flashbacks, a kaleidoscope of memories. There isn't any warning. The simplest things can trigger a memory of you. Like how when I smell smoke, it reminds me of being wrapped up in your jacket on cool October evenings. You yourself had never touched a cigarette, but your parents were rarely seen without one. Or how when I stop to listen to mindless chatter reminds me of all the ties we hid in the kitchen of that Italian restaurant downtown, just so we had somewhere to talk.
People think that when you're gone, you're gone. That there isn't anything left of you but thoughts that slip away like sand in the wind and an empty shell of the person you once were. But I still have all of that. I still can walk next to you, just as I am sitting next to you now, even though you don't see me. I know you still have nightmares about that night, when two bright lights coming towards us too fast in too little time took me out of your life. You can still see how you held me in your arms as the light went out of my eyes. And how you fought every minute that they tried to take me away from you, even though the person you were desperately trying to get to was gone.
I know it isn't fair. I know that it isn't fair that I'll never be held in your arms again, that I'll never hear you say I love you or kiss me in the rain. We had three months. In three months I loved you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. And now you hate me. You hate the fact that I didn't hang on later, and that you couldn't keep me alive.
You hate the fact that one moment we were laughing and singing in your truck and the next we were lying on the pavement, shattered glass falling around us like broken raindrops. You hate me because you punched your hand through the windshield to get to me, ruining your hand in the process. And for what?
I died in your arms that night. The only place I ever wanted to be. And now you have one hand and a broken heart and I'm the easiest one to blame. I know that. I understand that.
Because I hate the fact that you blame me, that you won't talk about me, won't think about me. I hate you because the first night home you put a gun to your head. You almost pulled the trigger.
But I love the fact that I was able to reach out and touch the air where your right hand had been, and you stopped. You whispered my name. And you cried. You cried for you. For me. For us. For the life that we should've had together. For our friends and our family. I love all of this, because as I see you now, two months after the accident, sitting under our tree and reading my notebooks, I can reach out and hold your right hand that is no longer with you, but with me. And I see a smile touch your lips, and you grasp my hand tighter.
And I know that you can feel me too.
