Whoever said it's better to have loved once than not at all was a liar. This hurts, this hurts more than I can explain, more than I ever thought I could feel. Lana made me feel the good stuff. I don't know how to feel this much bad.
Everything about it hurts, the emptiness of the house I can't afford without her. The absence of her teas in the morning and throughout the day. I have too much time now, too much time to think. I don't want this much time to think, I don't want to think about her or feel like this. I just don't want anything... anything but her. I want her.
I feel insane as I run out of our... my apartment, trying to get away from the memories tormenting me. Her voice embedded in the wall, her pillows sitting on the bed untouched, her blanket still strewn across the bed because she was going to fold it back when we got home, but she never got back home.
"That wasn't fair, Lana." I try to swallow the tears in the back of my throat. "You can't just do this to someone." It doesn't take me long to start panting. I don't focus on cardio. I write. I wait tables, I love Lana. I don't do much.
"You can't make me love you like that and then just..." I lean against a building to catch my breath. "Just leave." I keep running "you can't just leave like that!" I scream, people are looking, the sky is full of sun and blue skies and it feels like a traitor because it moved on so quickly. The wind bites at my face and the traitors sky stares down at me as I run. I don't know where to go or what to do or how to move on. how do you move on without your soul?
My legs knew better than me because here I am. At the park where Lana sang and danced and she made others dance just because they saw how much fun she was having. I stand there, at the empty park. It's too cold for kids. Lana would still come out and we'd walk and then we'd go home and she'd put tea on.
I want her to sing to me right now and I want her to make me dance in the middle of the park and not care if anyone thinks we're crazy. So, I do something I haven't had to do since my mom died. I ignore reality. I go into a story. One with Lana.
"Hey, Theo." Lana's smile is as radiant as ever, I take her in my arms and she pulls me along. Her steps are as uncoordinated as ever but she feels warm against the cold. I rest my head on top of hers and she holds me.
"Sing to me." I say as we circle alone in the park with the winter wind nipping at us. Lana is bundled up in her orange jacket and her green sweater. I bet she's wearing her jeans lined with the fleece and her smaller brimmed fedora.
Her voice fills my ears and everything inside me aches.
"What song is this?" I hold her tighter against me trying to draw strength from her.
"Winter by Joshua Radin." She buries her face into my neck, her hand sliding up into my hair.
"you sing this one a lot." I say. she nods into my neck.
"I love you, Theo." She holds me tighter. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, Lana." I squeeze her "please don't leave me again."
"Don't hide from life, Theo." She says "don't forget to live, please, Theo, please don't forget to live."
"I can't do it without you though." My eyes sting.
"Yes you can." She says "you can, I was just one chapter in your life, this isn't the end of your book."
"I can't." I say again "I can't live without you I don't know how to."
"Oh, Theo." She presses a kiss to my cheek "yes you do." She steps back and takes my hands in hers. Her hands are cold.
"I don't." I shake my head "not anymore, not after you." she brushes her fingers over my cheek and she keeps humming.
"Are you okay, young man?" A voice shatters my story and I'm back in the cold. Lana is gone, her touch, her voice, her warmth. It's gone again. winter has never felt so cold.
"um..." I clear my throat and try to regain some composure "yea, I'm fine... thanks." I pull my beanie down. Lana got it from a small thrift store in new Jersey, she and Shaina took a trip there once, a girls weekend and she brought this back.
"You don't look fine." The man looks vaguely familiar but I everyone looks different to me now. He sits on the bench and pats the seat beside him.
"I should really go..." I trail of as he sits there waiting for me. "okay." I sit beside him, he's got a hat on and he looks a little like the guy who fixed woody in Toy Story.
"You!" I exclaim finally piecing the face with the necklace around my neck.
"Where's your dancing partner?" He asks.
"She uh..." I don't know what to say, everyone knew it already. I've never had to say the words. I've never had to break the news to anyone.
"she had an acc..." no that's not right, she didn't have an accident.
"she um..." I don't know what to say.
"I see." He says and I see it in him too. A light goes out in his eyes.
"how do you..." I trail off again, I can't seem to finish anything anymore.
"If it's this hard to find the words to say it," he shrugs and gestures where he found me "You were dancing with her just now?"
I nod "I'm not crazy, I know it wasn't real."
"It'd be nicer to be crazy." He says. I look at him.
"crazy people don't know it's not real, they see things and believe they're real and maybe that's not so bad sometimes." He nods looking out at the park.
"This was my wife's favorite place." He says. "I come here because it makes me feel close to her."
"This is the first time I've willingly left my house since..." another unfinished sentence.
"Yeah," he nods "took me some time too but we have to stop being selfish."
"What?" I physically jerk away from him, surprised at his words.
"The people we love, they love us too, they don't want us to be sad for them." His eyes follow the trail of the park around, the same trail Lana and I walked almost every day.
"I don't know how to live without her." I tell him.
"Me neither." The man chuckles "but I ask myself 'what would my wife make me do right now?' and that's what I do." He slides a glance at me "I think yours would make you shave that beard, it looks a little funny on you." he tilts his head around "especially with that little patch missing."
I never could bring myself to finish the shaving. I wasn't going out anywhere, Lana isn't here to make me do it.
"they try to help." I sigh "my friends, my grandma." Is shake my head "it's just that..."
"Everything reminds you of her?" he guesses.
I nod "and then it just hurts."
"It's like you can't breathe?" he guess again.
"Yeah."
"No one can replace her and while they mean well, everything they do to try and help just makes it worse."
"how long has it been?" I ask him.
His eyes get sad then, really sad "a year now... today." He looks to me "you?"
"four months and twenty-five day." I don't think there is a heart in my chest anymore. I think Lana somehow took that with her too because it's not my heart that aches, it's everything around it. The hollow cavern where it should be.
"still fresh." He rests a hand on my shoulder. "Theo, what would Lana make you do right now?"
I don't have to think. "we danced already so we'd go home and she'd make tea and she'd drink it out of her favorite cup and we'd sit together. I'd write and she'd read or she'd practice drawing or..." I sigh "it doesn't matter, she's not here to make me do anything."
"I guess you'll just have to make yourself do it for her then." He smiles at me, it's not like Lana's smiles, not like he's trying to share his happiness with me but his smile is understanding. His smile makes me feel like, for the first time in months, that I'm not alone.
"Now go on home and make a cup of tea."
"okay." I start home. I don't want to do anything.
My hands take care of everything as they go through the familiar motions of heating up the water, taking her cup down. It still has a lipstick stain on it from that day. I don't wash it. I set it beside the kettle and I take out a cinnamon apple tea, she wouldn't want too much caffeine so close to bed.
I ignore the eviction letter on the table and I take the cup back to the room, where Lana danced in the morning with a cup of tea in hand and something sweet in the other. I stop in the doorway. I haven't slept in it since... I haven't crossed into it. Alex and Shaina got my things out of it for me. My clothes sit in a basket beside the couch. They let me borrow a pillow and blanket from their house.
I take a step into the room and I can smell her. my knees are weak as I force them to the bed. I go to my side at first but my legs lead me to hers and then I can't stand anymore. I collapse on the bed and sit on her side with her tea in my hands. Her bedside table has a lamp she had from before I met her, it's got strands of lace and ribbon and sparkly things over it. She decorated it herself. Random things she took off of other things she found at various thrift stores. She loved this lamp.
I take a sip of her tea and it feels like her kiss. I take another drink, the spice of the cinnamon and the sweetness of the apple. Funny, for all the times she had this tea, I'd never tried it. I hug her cup to my chest because it must still hold a part of her with it. She held it and cherished it everyday. I open her drawer and see handfuls of pictures. Our wedding pictures on the subway on the top. The ones from coffee and tea with Alex and Shaina below that, pictures of nights gone out. Pictures she took while I was sleeping and she posed beside me. Something bubbles up in my chest. I'm sure it's a sob but that's not what comes out. I set her cup down and I pull the pictures out push them out over then bed and I'm laughing.
The pictures are full of Lana and me. Pictures of us on the couch, of her on the couch and me writing beside her or sitting at the table. Mornings at the kitchen table and of her sitting in the bathroom while I shower. I laugh at the pictures of us in the thrift stores, she dressed me in the most ridiculous costumes and then she took pictures. I go back for more but there's no more, instead, there's a note.
There's a lot more on my Instagram
;)
And if you've found these I imagine something bad has happened so you can read my diary now and please give Alex and Shaina their letters too
Under the note is a box, there and under the box is her journal, it's a brown hard cover book with a pink flower at the bottom corner. I open the box first and find the strips of paper I wrote to her. The ones I left for her by her tea to cheer her up telling her the reasons I love her. I take them out one at a time 'I love your laugh', 'I love your smile', I love the way your nose wrinkles when you're trying to figure something out.' I pull the strips out one at a time. some have tea stains on them or water damage on the corners. My breath hitches in my chest and tears sting my eyes. I turn the papers over in my hands and find her handwriting
I love the way he cares so much
I love the sound of him tapping at his keys late at night
I love how his eyes are the perfect color of chocolate.
I love his chestnut hair
I love how well he knows me
I love it when he makes me smile
My chest aches at her handwriting, at the things I didn't even know she thought. I should have known though I should have guessed. I set her notes aside. I want to read them one day at a time. Like the notes I left for her to cheer her up or to remind her how much I love her. I reach for her journal and open to the first page.
Dear Diary
"To live would be an awfully big adventure"
-J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
I find my heart then because I can feel it breaking. Below that is another quote.
"Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever."
― , Peter Pan
Theo, if you're reading this you can skip to the last page and then go back and read it at your leisure. The last page is really important.
My hands shake, my heart is very much there as it pounds at my ribcage. I flip to the last page.
Dear Theo,
I'm writing the last page in advance because I want you to know that it's okay, Theo. It really is. When I started this diary, I wanted to leave something behind so that I could live through this book somehow. But it's okay, I don't want that anymore. You give me everything I could ever want. I get to experience what real and true love feels like and I get to be loved by you and I get to love you and I realize now, that that's all I want. I want to live the most I can with whatever time I have and you give that to me, every day we're together and I get to see you smile and spend time in your arms.
Here's where I'm going to ask you for a favor.
I want you to live and have adventures and find love again. I want you to look at page one of this book because you are not the stars, you don't have to watch, you get to live and be apart. So, page one, you're on page one and I'm on the last page and that's okay. It's okay for you to live and adventure and love. Please, Theo, love again.
***
It's morning. I've been scrolling through Lana's Instagram all night, reading her letters and her journal. She recorded everything in some way. She made an entire story of our relationship. She even posted the picture of when we first met. She snapped a picture of both of us. Both sweaty not because I was running but because I it was hot out. I found myself in a strange mixture of tears of anguish and bursts of laughter at the memories. The videos she posted just singing random songs with a small dedication to me a in the caption. I recognized the songs as she sang them and I let them play and I listened to them and for right now it's like she's here with me.
What would Lana make me do right now? I cradle my phone in my hand.
"Shave..." I push myself up and step into the bathroom. I leave her video on as I shave. Lana would be upset if she saw me right now. If she saw how much time I was wasting.
"What now?" I tap my fingers along the sink.
"Tea." The kitchen is quiet. The house is quiet. I ignore the eviction notice and turn on the kettle. I take my laptop out and start it up. A picture of Lana and me sitting on the park bench is there and I find my heart again, still beating, somehow.
I go to open my story to continue working on it but I click on a new document instead. My fingers go ahead on their own.
I hear her music before I've completely woken up. I can hear her feet padding along the carpet as she dances to her music. I turn over and watch her.