Live Your Life

Prologue

October 1st 2012

Exactly fifty days had passed since she last held the hand of her husband, Elena Greene sat looking through her window towards the quiet streets of Port Kenedy. It was cold, the sky had been angry for weeks as the rain ran down the window and the wind crashing against the window. She gazed out at the lighthouse as the end of the town that lit up the entire town as the light circulated the town and the dock that brought business to the town. The trees that ran down the narrow streets of the town were barren, their cragged limbs curling in the frigid air like arthritic fingers.

She knew that Damon would want her to listen to music tonight, the night of their anniversary of the first time of them meeting over five years ago when they were in college together. She could hear Goyte singing "Somebody I Used to Know" in the background, a song that had always reminded her of Damon as it was his favourite song that he would play whilst getting dressed in the morning for work.

At the age of twenty-three, she was a widow and she hated everything about the word, what it implied, how it sounded and worst of all, the way her mouth moved when she formed the word. Elena would avoid the word completely. Every day everybody would ask her how she was doing, she would lie, she would smile which would say 'I'm fine, thank you.' But sometimes, just sometimes she would shrug her shoulders and nod her head, but when she really she was thinking 'You want to know what it was like to lose my husband? Here's what it's like. Damon is dead and now that he's gone I feel as I'm dead, too and I don't know how I'm going to live without him.'

Is that, Elena wondered, what do people want to hear? Do they want to hear the truth or do they want to hear what they want to hear, that she'll be okay, that it's hard but she'll make it through and thank you for asking? That she should be a brave solider and go on with life like nothing had happened? Although sometimes she would lie and pretend to be the brave solider, she would also tell the truth and tell people that she wasn't coping and that she was miserable without her husband being by her side.

After all, she didn't feel as if she was going to be okay, half of the time, she didn't think that she was going to make it through the day without breaking down, especially on nights like tonight. She couldn't stop thinking about how much she had let him down. When Damon was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour she promised him that she would be by his side, from the start to the end but when it finally came, the night that he was taken away from her she wasn't there. She was in the hospital all right but she wasn't next to him. She was in a bed, highly sedated after getting involved in a car accident on the way to the hospital to be with him. She wasn't there when he passed and she forever felt guilty, she never got to say goodbye to him but most of all, she hadn't kept her promise, to be with him until the end. Everybody had told her that it wasn't her fault, she tried to get there but it was a stormy night, there were flash floods and the roads were barely visible. But this wasn't enough to hear for her, she had let him down and she would forever feel guilty for it.

Nora, Damon's aunt, had asked her if she would like to have dinner tonight, but Elena declined. So had Greg and Caroline, Damon's best friend and hers, but she'd turned them down as well. All of them understood. Or rather, they pretended to understand, since none of them thought that she should be alone. And maybe they were right. Everything in the house, everything she smelled, saw and touched reminded her of Damon. His clothes were still hanging in the closet and packed into drawers, his razor blades still sat next to the soap dish in the bathroom, and the subscription of Sports Weekly on the coffee table that had come in the mail the day before. There was still a half empty bottle of Bourbon whiskey, his favourite, placed on the counter in the kitchen. Earlier that evening when she passed the bottle on the counter she whispered to herself, "Damon is never going to drink those," and she turned her back, placing it against the counter as she slid down it, finally sitting down on the kitchen floor and cried for an hour.

Elena sat by the window, lost in her thoughts. She gradually registered the faint sound of a branch thumping against the wall. The thumping was persistent and steady until Elena released she was wrong about the branch, there was someone at the door knocking on it.

Elena stood, her movements lethargic. As she arrived at the door, she paused to run her hands through her straight, long, brunette hair, hoping to compose herself. If it was her friends checking in on her, she didn't want them to think she needed them to stay for a while. However, when she finally opened the door she was surprised to see a young man in a yellow sticker, in his hand her held a white envelope.

"Mrs Green?" He asked.

"Yes?"

The stranger took a hesitant step towards her, "I'm supposed to deliver this to you. My uncle said it was important."

"Your uncle?"

"He wanted to make sure that you got this tonight."

"Do I know him?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "But he was pretty insistent that you got this tonight, it's a letter from someone."

"Who?"

"My uncle said that you'd understand as soon as you opened it."

The young man shoved the letter in Elena's hand before she could stop him, then turned to leave.

"Wait," she said, "I don't understand..."

The young man glanced over his shoulder. "Happy Anniversary," he said.

Elena stood in the doorway as she watched him climb into his truck. Then, when she was back inside she walked over to the sofa and sat down on it with her eyes locked on the letter in her hand. She had seen the handwriting on little love notes that Damon would leave around the house, on hastily scrawled messages by the phone, on paperwork that piled up on his desk. She held the envelope in front of her, reading her name over and over again. Then, with her hands trembling, she took the letter out, her eyes were drawn towards the words written in the upper left corner.

Dear Elena.

She closed her eyes, feeling as if her body was suddenly growing smaller. Shaking her head she forced herself to take a deep breath, opening her eyes once more and started to read the letter again.

Dear Elena,

I know that if you're reading this letter I have already passed away. I have no idea how long I've been gone, but I hope you've been able to begin healing. I know that if I was in your position,, it would be really hard for me too, but you know I've always believe you were stronger than me, and I'm supposed to be the man.

I guess I always knew in the back of my mind that I wasn't going to make it, however, I didn't want to think about it, because I knew that you didn't have anyone to help you through something like this, family, I mean. It broke my heart to think that you would be all alone. So I've asked Greg, Nora and most of all, Caroline to look out for you, asking them to be with you all of the time and make sure that you're never alone. And I know that you've most probably not listened to them and pushed them away. I know you, Elena, you want to be on your own when times get tough but trust me on this, I want you to be happy so please, please don't push away the people who mean the most to you.

I hope you're doing all right. Since I got sick, I've worried nonstop about that. I love you, Elena, I really do. The day that I met you in college was the best day of my life because it meant that I would become the luckiest man alive. It would break my heart if I thought that you would never be happy again. So, please do that for me. Be happy. Don't think that because I'm no longer here that you should stop living because you shouldn't. You should keep living; spend time with those that you call family as the world is a better place when you smile.

And don't worry. From wherever I am, I'll be watching over you. I'll be your guardian angel, sweetheart. You can count on me to keep you safe.

I love you.

Damon x

Through her tears, she clutched the letter to her chest and sighed sadly. She glanced up to the sky and shook her head with a small, sad smile appearing on her face. She looked back down and glanced down at the letter in her hand. "I promise, Damon, I promise that I won't push them away."