Her Lover in Shadows

The World Exist in This Room

Mariya walked through the door and tossed her keys in the direction of the table. As the keys clattered to the floor just past their target, she dropped herself down into his favorite chair, still wearing the nursing scrubs the hospital had given her in the emergency room. Her legs slowly drew up into her chest and her body sank into the fabric as she curled the whole of it into the seat.

This is where he would be sitting, for sure, if he had come back with her. Why? Why was he not with her? Why would he never be back with her? She suddenly opened her eyes, having not even realized that she had closed them, and for a flicker of a second… he was there smiling down at her with his arms around her and his chest beneath her head. Then just as quickly, he faded. She slammed he eyes shut again and tried to hold to that picture in her mind… as she began to cry deeply into a sleep that felt more like sinking than drifting.

Memories and Shadows

There he stood, the same guy she crushed on all last semester, just standing at the bar. She approached sheepishly. “I’m Mariya. We were in the same class last year.” He smiled and said, “I remember you.”

Boom! Boom! Boom! The knock at the door suddenly ripped her from her dream. She looked around for a moment at the dark room, save the little bit of light through the curtain-covered window. Suddenly, the knock came again, making her jump. She staggered to the door and got a vague recognition of her sister’s face standing there.

The conversation went on, and she was sure she responded at points… but it brushed by seemingly even less real than the dream she had been violently awakened from. One, maybe two blinks of the eye and suddenly, she was hugging her sister goodbye as she walked out the door.

*Clank*

She startled a moment and briskly walked toward the kitchen. There he was at the stove. He turned to her and smiled as he flipped the blueberry pancakes over. Tears streamed down her face as she ran to him.

Just as she reached him and threw her arms out… he vanished. She froze. Silence.

There were no pans. No pancakes. No him.

Still crying, she turned back toward the living room and forced her feet to move. As she turned away and towards the direction of the bedroom, she caught sight of him on the couch from the corner of her eye. She didn’t dare turn back to look. The empty couch would hurt too much. She just kept walking and then slammed the bedroom door behind her. More tears escaped as she fell to the bed and curled herself back into a fetal position again. As she closed her eyes, she felt his heat on her back and a faint phantom of his arm around her. She wouldn’t dare open her eyes and risk losing it. Again, her tears ushered her into a deep sorrowed sleep.

Healing of Time

Mariya got up from bed with a heavy weight on her heart. It had been a year since she lost Eric… a year to the day. The move helped, but it still hurt. She was herself again, had even gotten a promotion at work. With her heavy heart, she got up and got dressed.

She arrived at the graveyard and as she approached Eric’s grave, she saw a man standing there. She looked closer and realized it was one of the nurses from that night. The same one that had helped her and been so gentle that night.

She approached him slowly and he turned to her.

“Oh hey. I’m Tim. I was the…”

She smiled and said, “I remember you.”