9 months~linstead

Part 2

Erin's POV

I watched Jay until I couldn't see him anymore. It didn't take long before he was out of sight because TSA  waived him through due to his active duty status. I stood there for a little while longer after Jay was gone and struggled to pull myself together. I was in a fog. Jay was gone and there was no guarantee that he would come back.

I reach my hand in my pocket to feel what Jay had placed in there before he had kissed my one last time and walked away. He made me promise that I wouldn't peek until I got back to our home, and of course I had promised.

My phone buzzed and that is what finally pulled me out of a trance. I looked down at it and seen it is Kim asking if I want to have a girls night with her, Sylvie, and Reece tonight. I really don't want to. I wanna go home and be alone and curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep like I probably will for the next nine months. But I just promised Jay that I would talk care of myself, and I know that if I am around these girls they will make sure that happens. I quickly answered yes, and put my phone back in my pocket. I turn to leave, and stop at what I see.

It's a women, hugging a man whose wearing the same clothes that Jay was moments ago when I had to let him go. She gave him one last hug, then turned and let him go. For some reason I felt some closeness to this women, and for some reason, I feel compelled to go over to her. So I do.

"Hey," I say when I get close enough that she can hear me. "I'm Erin. I don't know why I felt the need to do this, but I just wanted to say that I get what you're feeling right now. I just had to watch my husband walk away, too."

She looked at me for a minute, slightly confused, then smiled sadly at me. "It's the hardest thing I've ever have to do..." She said.

I nodded in agreement.

"I'm Grace, by the way. "

I reached out my hand for her to shake and she took it hesitantly.

"Nice to meet you, Grace," I say.

"And you as well, Erin."

We stand there for a few minutes before she takes a deep breath, and asks if she can get my number, explaining that it will probably feel good to have someone to talk to who 'gets it'. I agree quickly and we exchange numbers. It's not long before my phone goes off again, with an alert from Mouse saying that Voight wants everyone to take the day. I sigh with relief at that, then decide that I'm going to need the few hours I have left before my girls night to get back across town and pull myself together. I say my good byes to Grace, promising to be in contact soon, then head out to my car.

As soon as I get in my car, I lock the doors and lean my head against the steering wheel. The urge to cry is strong, but I know that if I start now where's no way I'll stop in enough time to get back to my place before Kim picks me up. So, for what feels like the hundredth time that day, I pull myself together.

Until I get home.

1 1/2 hours later, Erin and Jays apartment.

I walk in the door to my apartment, our apartment, lock it, then slide my back down it until I'm on the ground with my knees pulled up to me. I finally reached in my pocket and pulled out the last piece of Jay that he had given me. And that was all it took for the floodgates to open and the sobs to start.

I clutched the tiny silver things against my chest and just sobbed. I can't believe that he gave these to me...they're his dog tags from his last tour. But I'm kinda glad he did. I decide that I'll wear them every day, so I'll always have a piece of him close to my heart.

I don't know how long I've been on the floor now, but it has to have been a while by now. I take a deep breath to quiet my sobs some, then slip Jays tags around my neck. I put my hands on the floor on either side of me and push myself back to my feet. Once I'm back on them, I walk towards my bathroom to try and pull my appearance together.

The second I flip the light switch on and see my appearance, my heart sinks again. There is no way in hell that I'm going to look even relatively good as new by the time Kim gets here, which should be any minute now. But I'm still going to try my best. First, I rinse my face with cold water, then I past it dry with a big fluffy towel. Next I try and use makeup to make my skin tone even and reduce the puffy look around my eyes. I'm pretty successful with that, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about the blood shot look in my watery eyes. So I give up and go lay on my big, empty bed, wishing that Jay would walk in the door and wake me up from this terrible nightmare that I'm living in.

I let myself imagine what it would be like if this really was a nightmare. Jay would walk in, and start placing feather light kisses all over my body and whisper sweet words in my ear to wake me up. If that doesn't work, he'll shake my shoulder and start saying my name loudly, telling me to wake up because he wants to see my beautiful blue eyes. And then I'll wake up, and we'll cuddle for a while until we get hungry, then we'll get up and either go to dinner or have a quiet night in our home. When we finish dinner, we'll come home and watch some tv, then I'll fall asleep next to Jay and he will be the first thing that I'll see when I wake up in the morning. Then we'll go to work together and come home and do it all over again.

I'm in my dreamland where Jay is still here, and a gentle shaking and a voice calling out my name starts to pull me from it. 'Erin. Erin. Erin wake up!' The voice calls. Jay? Is that Jay? Waking me up just like he does in my dreamland? I open my eyes, hoping to search out Jays green ones, only to be slightly disappointed when I see Kim's brown ones staring back at me.

"Ugh, I thought you were Jay," I groan.

"Sorry Erin, it's just me." Kim says with a soft smile.

"Not that I don't wanna see you...its just I-uh..."

"Erin," Kim cuts me off. "I can understand. You just had to drop your husband off at an airport to go fight a war that no one wanted in the first place. I have no idea what shape I'd be in if I had to drop Adam off for that, but I'm pretty positive that that it's be a similar one that you're in."

"Thanks for being here. How long were you trying to wake me up for? And how'd you get in?" I ask.

"About 20 minutes, but I think you needed the rest. And you gave me a key a few months ago," she says, holding up her lanyard that has several keys hanging from it, including a key that is identical to the one that's one my own lanyard and the one on Jays key ring and the one that's on Voights. After I think about it for a few seconds, I remember giving one to her.

"Gee, thanks," I joke back in response to her saying I look like I need the sleep.

"Any time, now let's go have a girls night." Kim says with a chipper smile.

She gets up and leaves the room, and I throw on one of Jays sweatshirts that still smells like him. Ever since the letter came last week, I haven't washed many of his clothes cause I wanted them to smell like him. Now I have a drawer full of t shirts and sweatshirts and sweatpants that smell like him, so I can feel like  he's here over the next several months. I reach around my neck and check to be sure Jays dog tags are still in place around my neck, and make sure my ring didn't slip off during my nap, then go and follow Kim out of my apartment and down to her car for my girls night to begin.

WOW! I cannot believe the positive response that I've gotten after only posting one part up! Thank you all so much, it means more to me than you will ever know-it's what keeps me writing! I hope you like this part as much as you did the last one, but idk because I haven't proofed any of this or read it all at once yet because I've been working on it for a few days now. Please don't forget to leave a comment to tell me how I'm doing or vote to give me a thumbs up, and don't forget to go check out my roger LINSTEAD story on this account. Thanks again all!

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