Like Real People Do - Jill Roord

Very Different Lives

Hunter's POV

Today marked sixty days sober.
Sixty long days full of blood, sweat, tears and a battle I never even desired to fight three months ago.

Today also marked fifty-four days in Barcelona, fifty-nine days since I'd last heard Jill's voice and sixty-one days since I'd last been in the warmth of her arms. 
If I was being honest, at some point I couldn't quite remember her laugh anymore. At some point along the way, I seemed to have forgotten how a smile lined her lips or how her words had filled my days, weeks and months. At some point, it became easier to get out of bed and look out at this city, whilst knowing she was in a different one. At some point after fighting and fighting, I learnt to be okay. Though I was still learning how to be okay without her. 
I still had days where the skies felt lower and every step required motivation I struggled to find, but I wasn't drowning anymore. I wasn't drowning myself in spirits or the memories of our past because as time moved on, my head cleared ready for new memories to be made. I'd never imagined a life after Jill, but slowly, I was learning to live one.
So, if someone asked how I was doing, I could honestly reply and say that I was alright - maybe even slightly better than alright.
But if someone was to ask me if I'd change how things had ended and the way my war had engulfed us both, I would. I would change it a thousand times over until things were put right in every universe because I still believed that Jill and I had been one of the only perfect things I'd ever stumbled upon. 

But I was doing better now... I was even happy some days.
Honestly, I was. 

Though I'd always love her. Always. I was still hoping that it would be her and I in the end. I knew we were over, but for some reason I couldn't convince my heart of that fact. It was almost easier to let a fraction of my mind believe in the possibility.
Some people searched their whole lives to find what I'd found in Jill, but I hadn't even been looking when I saw her for who she truly was. Everything. My everything. Truth be told, I had even tried to turn a blind eye when I saw that first spark, but how could I have ever turned my back on something so terribly magnificent?
I now asked myself every day how I'd managed to loose the one person who'd ever seen both the worst and best parts of my soul that I'd stripped naked for her to hold. Jill had held my soul in her bare hands, seen its' wounds and scars, yet she'd still somehow loved me with the purest intentions and a smile I wished I could've never forgotten. 

I hadn't spoken to her since I left England. She hadn't even spoken to me when I was still in England and I didn't blame her for that. I could never be angry at her. Never. But sometimes when the phone rang or a message delivered to my phone, I'd hope that notification might be from her. I hoped she might check in or send a simple update, but it never happened. I never heard from her. 

Time was moving on. Life hadn't stopped. Things were happening all around me and the past wasn't something I had the option to live, so I either had to choose between throwing myself into this new life or sitting in the confines of Alexia's apartment forever and dwelling over the life I could've had if my demons had never revealed themselves. 

And I'd chosen to live again. To try. So far, I'd begun training with the Barca squad for two days of the week and I tried keeping active for all of the other days. The girls had been amazing and I was begining to find myself to feel comfortable in the city I'd spent my youngest years in. I was back with my closest friends and evenings consisted of dinner and cards games followed by watching a match on the TV or sitting on the balcony and looking over the city with Alexia. 

I'd never felt closer to my sister. I'd never looked at her before and realized quite how incredible she was, quite how proud of her I'd always been. Every night Alexia told me how we'd always be sisters in every world, in every lifetime, in every universe. She told me this to prove I'd never be alone, to show me that despite all the bad, I'd always have her on my side. I agreed that in every universe we'd be sisters, but I wanted my sister in this lifetime just as much as the rest. I wanted to focus on this lifetime and get a little bit better everyday, everyday I wanted to smile a little more often for Alexia.