Chapter 32: I Miss Her

                                    

                                          


                          
Lauren hates beards, she says they're scruffy and the one time I tried to grow one, her face broke out in a rash. I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

                          
My suit lays as lifeless as me over the chair, where I left it two weeks ago. I need to get up. I know I do... my grievance days were up a week ago at work but I can't care. I can't move.
                          
            The knock comes at the same time as always. 
                          
"Good afternoon, honey." Grandma closes the door behind her and opens the curtains, the ones Lauren picked up from the thrift store. 
                          
"Come on, Alex." She pushes my legs off the couch and opens up a lunch bag. Vegetable soup today. She says I need more vegetables. She says I'm depressed. 
                          
"Thanks grandma." I'm not depressed, I just don't know how to live anymore. 
                          
"How are you feeling today?" She asks pushing my hair off my forehead. "Trying the beard again?" She smiles but her eyes are missing something too.
                          
"Lauren isn't here," I clear my throat "she sings to me while I shave and she can't so..." I shrug and force myself to take another bite. Grandma is a fantastic cook, but this doesn't taste like anything. 
                          
"well..." grandma struggles to find something to say but what is there to say? what do you say to someone who lost their soul?
                          
"I could sing to you while you shave." She suggests.
                          
"I don't think that'll be the same." I force another bite down while she watches me. 
                          
"I know it won't be the same but at least you won't be alone." She smiles at me, her hand resting on my back and for the first time in a really long time, mom's passing hits me. My chest is hollow, my body doesn't want to move but the look in grandma's eyes, so ready to help. It reminds me a bit of Lauren and I find myself moving. 
                          
"Okay." I stand up and head back to the bathroom.
                          
            The water runs into the sink in the same way it always does, the bathroom is the same as it always is, Lauren's toothbrush sits in the cup holder, she wrapped a piece of floss around it, I don't know why though, she does it to every toothbrush she gets. 
                          
"What does she usually sing to you?" grandma asks. I smear the cream over my face. 
                          
"I don't know the names, she just starts singing" I uncap my razor "love songs, usually." 
                          
"Okay." Grandma's smile is only halfhearted, I don't think anyone knows how to live without Lauren. I don't think the world knows how to keep going without Lauren. 
                          
            I bring the razor to my face as grandma starts to sing. Grandma actually has an amazing voice, hers and Lauren's voices are completely different and grandma used to sing to me when I was young. None of that matters when it hits me. I shake my head and drop the razor.
                          
"I can't." My knees collapse and I'm on the ground. Standing never felt so hard before. Breathing didn't used to take so much effort. 
                          
"Alex..." she sighs and sits beside me on the ground. She pulls me into her arms. I hold onto her but this doesn't feel better. 
                          
I loved her hugs.
                          
***
                          
            The table is different. All the chairs are filled but it feels empty. Lauren would be sitting next to me, grandma is sitting there. I think she's afraid for me. I'd be afraid for me too if I could feel. 
                          
            The food is tasteless and sits in my stomach like a sack of pebbles. No one really bothers me after the first few attempts fell flat. My cousins look at me with their big sad eyes and that gets me the most. I go up to my room. 
                          
            Standing in the door way, my heart sinks into my stomach and my stomach doesn't like it. I stare at the bed we had slept in just after our wedding. I should have married her sooner I sit there in the doorway and lean my head against the door frame. I loved being her husband I stare into the room. A perfectly preserved shrine of me before I went off on my own. Before I met Lauren. How could I have ever been happy before Lauren?
                          
            I can hear them all downstairs, the party a little quieter, a little less alive because Lauren makes everything alive. She is my sun and my earth and my gravity and my soul. I'm convinced I never had my own soul, she had it with her and when we met we were whole and now I'm not whole, now I'm just a shell. 
                          
            A creak from the top stair brings me out of my thoughts but I don't look at it. Aiden sits beside me, his mom got him into the same suit he wore to my wedding.
                          
"Why are you staring at your room?" he asks me. 
                          
"The last time I slept in here I had Lauren." I tell him "I don't want to ruin the memory by going in without her."
                          
             
                          
"Oh..." Aiden's eyes trail around my room before he sighs and folds himself forward. He rests his head on his hands and his knees on the floor. "I miss, her."
                          
I look at him, almost startled by the words. I know everyone misses her, it's obvious but no one says it, especially not to me. 
                          
"I miss Lauren." He sighs, I watch Aiden for a second before resting my hand on his back and turning back to the room.
                          
"Me too."
                          
***
                          
            Sleeping is the best solution for me because when I go to sleep, when I dream, I see Lauren. I keep having the same dream. Lauren and I in Paris and she's eating a croissant and drinking tea and she's smiling at me. It's perfect again, we're together and I have my soul back. Waking up is the hard part because I have to face the world without Lauren. 
                          
            She says mornings are good because it means you get another day, what if I don't want another day without her?
                          
I don't want another day without her.
                          
I loved how she said good morning to me every morning