The six stages of grief

Bargaining

Nicklaus,

There's no way you're dead. Gone. Theres no way. It had to be someone else that day that was wearing a red shirt with their blond hair slicked back out of their green eyes. Someone else wearing the ring I gave you for our anniversary. Someone else.

But I know it wasn't. It was you.

I called Tyler that day. I told him that maybe you were alive, and that you faked your death for some reason. That maybe you got kidnapped and they made you fake your death. Maybe you had a secret twin and you were on your way home now. Tyler said he'd be over to our apartment in a Minute.

Five minutes later, he was at the door. As soon as I opened it, he was there. He pulled me into a hug, telling me how sorry he was it was like this. How sorry he was that he had left me when I need ended him.

I asked him what he was talking about. He pulled me to the couch, making me sit down. He sat on the stool in front of me, my hand trapped between his own.

"Ray," He had began, taking a full breath as he looked me in the eye, "He's gone. You know that. You saw his body. He didn't fake it, he doesn't have a twin. That was nic. I check, trust me I did. He had nic's scar on his lip and the birthmark behind his ear. The hickeys from the night before they had failed to hide." He was at a whisper at this point, tears in both of our eyes. "He's gone, Ray." He mumbled to me.

I heard a loud wail, not sure where it came from, before I realized it was coming from me.

He pulled me forward, lowering us both to the ground, as he pulled me into his lap, cradling me so my cries landed in his chest, and his on my neck. He continued to whisper to me how sorry he was, as if it was his fault.

I still knew it was mine.

Ray