In the end

Chapter 33 - Grief

~ Sarah Jones POV ~

I groaned and rolled over trying to find a cooler spot on the bed. My hair was stuck to the back of my neck, the humidity felt even higher than yesterday. Knowing I would never get back to sleep I reluctantly got up. The heat wasn't too bad but sometimes the humidity was almost unbearable. The best thing about living here though, was the endless supply of fresh coffee. I filled my dented kettle and ground the beans while waited for it to boil. I still missed my coffee maker desperately but I had gotten used to the local ways. My Spanish had improved immensely and was pretty close to full conversations by now.

There were other things I missed desperately as well but I tried not to think of those things. I couldn't let myself go there again. When my mind wandered to beautiful hazel eyes and strong hands I felt the tear in my heart start to ache again. I pushed it all back remembering the reasons I was here. To keep him safe. He deserved it, deserved better than me. So I kept busy. I found countless ways to fill the long hours until I all but collapsed with exhaustion. Anything to keep from thinking too much was all I asked for these days.

I went for my usual early morning run just concentrating on my breathing. I loved the burn in my lungs and the sound of the water to my left. If I tried really hard and let everything else fade away I felt like I could keep going and stay alive. Even if I wasn't really living anymore.

~ Jared POV ~

Wake up. Drink water. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth. Go to work. Go home. Work out. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. For about 3 years now this is how I lived. I smiled and laughed when I was supposed to and went out with my friends. Called my parents. I did everything now that I did before her. I didn't want anyone to worry about me, I had already put them through too much. So I faked it and I had gotten very good at it. So good I sometimes believed it myself. But that never lasted very long. Because I was just a shell now. All of my insides had been carved out and replaced with nothingness.

When Jay told me he was going to propose I actually felt happy. No one deserves a happy ending more than him. It was killing me what I was doing to him. He'd always had such a big heart and I knew how much he worried about me. It was easier when we were filming though, to be able to forget myself and become someone else entirely. It was getting harder and harder to leave Sam behind me at the end of the day, because he was the perfect escape from reality. I wasn't trying to kid myself, I knew exactly how screwed up I really was. The week after she left was the worst of my life. I woke up to find a note on the pillow next to me. The first time I read it I only saw the first 3 words, but when I read it again I was confused. "I love you. I'm sorry." I thought she had just gone home so I texted her. She didn't reply so I called. Nothing. I started to get worried so I called Jensen to get Jules' number. She couldn't get ahold of her either. Jules had a key to her place so she went over but Bree wasn't there. All her stuff was though and that's when I got scared. We called her work and her friends. Still nothing. We called the police and filed a report and it wasn't until a few days later that anyone noticed a few things were missing. To this day they haven't found anything.

It wasn't until a week later that I figured it out. I was in her apartment trying to find something, anything that would help me look for her. That's when I finally noticed. Her pictures. They were gone, the frames were there but blank, along with her fridge. That's when I knew she hadn't been taken. She had left. I remember my legs giving out and my knees hitting the floor. I sobbed into my hands until I had no tears left. Until I had nothing left.

I don't know how long I stayed like that until my phone rang, pulling me back from my despair. It was Jensen. I didn't remember telling him where I was but suddenly he was there, pulling me from the floor. Later he told me I kept saying her name and saying she was gone. He brought me back to his place where Jules was waiting. Bree had sent her a text earlier that morning, with the same message she had left me. "I love you, I'm sorry."

I took the note from my side table, it was almost unreadable now. At first I had just sat in the dark running my thumb over the letters. I didn't know why I did it over and over, like I could somehow pull her from the paper. I had fallen into a deep, dark hole and I didn't want to leave. I just wanted to keep reliving the memories I had of her, terrified I would forget what she looked like. I didn't even have a picture of her.

Work was the only thing that kept me going. Jensen and I had played these characters for 10 years now. In the beginning we had to draw on personal experiences from our own lives for the emotional scenes. Then as the show went on we were able to connect more with hardships our characters had gone through. That changed for me though, without even meaning to I would always remember that moment when I realized she had left me. Of course Jensen knew it too. When the scene was over I couldn't push it back like I used to be able to. Im ashamed to admit that more than once I had to escape to my trailer to let my grief play out. Grief was the only word I could think of to describe how I felt. I even looked it up in the dictionary. 'Grief: The feeling of deep sorrow'. That said it all.