“Sure.”
When I’m in the car, I stare out of the window. My mind can’t seem to grasp onto the reality of this. It’s not possible. None of this is possible. Caleb isn’t dead. He didn’t die last night. He’s going to die when we’re both old and grey and he’s going to let me die first like he promised.
Sasha and Tommy speak quietly but I don’t care what they’re saying.
The journey home seems to last forever. I rush inside. I know he’s not here but I can’t stop hoping this is some sort of elaborate joke. They’re fucking with me, I just know it.
But they aren’t.
I race up the stairs and look at the blanket on the floor. It hurts. It hurts so badly. I’ve never felt pain so potent, so thick and so powerful. The bed sheet has been stripped and the mattress has been cleaned.
“Babe,” Sasha says softly. I feel her hand on my shoulder.
“He wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t.” I snap, but I know this isn’t true. He’s left me. He’s gone.
He’s dead.
I break. I completely break.
I’m a mess. I’m a crying heap on the ground. She holds me but it brings me no comfort.
My world just ended.
Caleb… he’s gone. He’s gone and he’s not coming back.
I scream. I shout. I blame everyone. I blame myself.
Sasha cries with me. She calls my mum despite the fact that she’s on holiday.
“I don’t want you.” I cry at them both. Tommy and Sasha both try to comfort me but I won’t allow it. “I want him! I need him!”
“We know, baby,” Sasha says on a choked breath and reaches for me. I move away. “Please,” I beg. “Please, I just need to be alone.”
“We’ll be downstairs.” Tommy looks devastated, so does Sasha, but they don’t get it.
They’ll never get it because they’ll never have a Caleb. Caleb was one of a kind. Caleb was mine.
He’s my world and I was his.
They don’t get it.
They’ll never get it.
I hate them for that.
Chapter Seven
The blanket still smells like him, so I wrap it around my face and inhale deeply. He always did smell good. My hand goes to my belly. We find out if it’s a boy or a girl in just three weeks. Caleb was so excited.
We were supposed to get married today.
We were both so excited.
Why would God give me such an amazing man, such an amazing gift, and then just rip it away? Why can’t he take me too? Why Caleb?
Is this some sort of punishment? Did I do something to offend him?
I’m sorry! Now send him back! Please, just send him back.
“You need to eat,” I hear Sasha say.
Eat? How can I eat? Why are they even here? Just let me be.
“If you don’t eat…”
“I’ll die.”
“You have a baby to think about.”
Tears spill from my eyes. One of them trickles over the bridge of my nose but I make no move to wipe it away. He died in this spot. I want him to feel it. I want him to feel my sorrow.
“Come on.” Tommy sits me up and kneels beside the bed. Sasha holds a tray of food. “You need to eat something.”
“It all tastes the same,” I whimper as she feeds me yoghurt. “It all tastes like ash.”
Tommy rubs the back of my neck, his eyes swollen and his face showing his pain. “I know, but you still need to eat it. Please.”
I nod. He’s right. “And then can I sleep?”
“Sure,” he whispers and squeezes my hand.
They leave the room when I’m done. I feel like throwing it back up. It stays down somehow and my stomach settles long enough for me to close my eyes.
It’s such an empty feeling, knowing he’s not coming back. You see it happen to other people and you cry but you never truly feel what they feel. I know this because I’ve never felt this. Never.
“You need a shower, sweetie,” Sasha whispers and slides the cover from over my head. “It’s been three days nearly. It’s time to start moving.” Her words are soft but her demands still hit me deep. I don’t want to move. “Come on.”
“I’m tired,” I say and reach for the blanket. It’s tugged away completely, much to my annoyance.
“No, you need to get up and shower,” Sasha says more forcefully this time. I sigh and climb out of bed. She leads me out of the room and into the bathroom. “And you’re not sleeping in that bed another night.”
Where the hell am I supposed to sleep then?
“Tommy is bringing over some new bed sheets after class.” She answers my inner monologue. She’s psychic as well as a nuisance. Brilliant. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m only trying to help.”
“I don’t need help,” I whisper.
She sighs and hugs me from behind. “His funeral is in two days. You need to pull yourself together.”
“I don’t want to,” I admit. I just want to sleep and waste away.
“I know.” She unbuttons my shirt, knowing I barely have the energy to do it myself. “But you need to. Because of this.” Her hand rests on my protruding stomach. “And for Caleb. But mostly, you need to do it for you. Before you sink into a darkness so final you probably won’t be able to find your way back.”
My lower lip trembles. I don’t think it’s stopped trembling since that night. “I’m sorry, Sasha.”
“Hey,” she turns the shower on after releasing me and gives me a smile. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Come on, get undressed and get in.”
I nod and peel off the rest of my clothes after she leaves the room.
My reflection in the mirror stares back at me. She looks tired, heartbroken and hideously unkempt. She looks broken. A mirror doesn’t show you the opposite of everything. Sure it looks like everything is on the opposite side to what it actually is, but everything inside is still exactly the same. In mirror land I’m still a mess and Caleb is still dead.
How does a twenty three year old die from heart failure? It makes no sense! He was healthy.
I knew I should’ve taken him to the doctors. If I’d rung that ambulance when he had the fever, he’d still be here now!
This is all my fault.
The water does its job but I don’t feel it. The hot spray cleans away the dirt but it’ll never clean my soul. I want it to. I want it to wash away the pain and leave the girl I once was in its wake, but it won’t. It’ll only cleanse my skin and leave me feeling more awake than I was before I got in.
Which is bad because I just want to sleep. I don’t want to feel this.
My tears blend with the water as it falls down my body. I know they’re there, I can feel them leaking from my eyes. So many tears. Do we ever run out? Has anybody ever truly run out of tears? Does their body dehydrate and wither or do they merely fall asleep?
If Caleb were here, we’d Google it together on his phone.
I don’t feel any better after my shower, especially not when I see the bed. It’s been completely stripped. My body can’t muster the right emotion for it though, so I just stare blankly at the naked mattress and try not to picture his lifeless body lying on it. Naked bed or not, the image is still there.