in which it rained on Saturday

It rained on Saturday, almost as though the weather man was in tune with the empty cold that had started in the pit of her stomach and forced itself outwards, icy fingers curling themselves around her, seeping through her veins, seeming to have no intention of ever letting her go. Perhaps it would never be sunny again.
It pounded hard against the window, the dull pitter-patter almost soothing in it’s repetitiveness. She shivered, pulled the blanket closer around her and shuffled closer to the edge of the bed, her eyes stinging as the memories and then the loneliness crept over her again. Every day she kidded herself that it was getting easier. Every night she fell asleep thinking that maybe today hadn’t been that bad; she had remembered something in the middle of the afternoon and it hadn’t made her throw up. That was an improvement. And yet, every morning she woke up and felt it afresh, raw and deep and as painful as it ever was. One day she expected to wake up and find it had engulfed her entirely.

There had been times, extended periods of, over the last two weeks when she had seriously considered just giving up. She had thought about pill bottles and vodka, about razor blades in the bath, about bathrobe belts and shower rails. She knew it would come to nothing. Not because she wanted to spare those who loved her from the same kind of suffering; she was still at the selfish stage, but because she was a coward. Death offered her no guarantees and she was terribly afraid that there wouldn’t be the longed for release; that it wouldn’t bring them back together and she would just end up alone, cold and in the dark with nothing. At least this way she could still remember, even if to do so brought dehibilitating pain.

The problem was that she didn’t think she had ever felt so alone. Loneliness had only ever been a word before. Sometimes, in more lucid moments she pondered how she could feel so lonely when she wasn’t really ever by herself. She had her family. Her friends. Long, seemingly never ending streams of well-wishers. Flowers and cards that covered every available surface and made her want to scream and never stop. There were whispered clichés about time being a great healer, about how it hurts now, but that she’ll be ok, that she had to be strong. She didn’t feel strong, she didn’t know where to start to try and she didn’t want to listen to these people who had little idea how she felt, telling her how she should be feeling, behaving, reacting.

She just wanted to be left alone.

Leave me alone I’m lonely.

All she wanted was to be on her own.
Lie.
All she wanted was him. She wasn’t greedy; a minute would be enough. Just enough time to look at him properly, touch him, smell him, say those things that she really wished she had said before. She just wanted the chance to really say goodbye.
It had always been her problem, wanting what she couldn’t have.
One more minute was impossible. She knew that. She was sad not stupid, but if she couldn’t have that then she just wanted it all, the cards; the flowers; the people just to disappear. She wanted to cry and she wanted to scream and she wanted to smash a few plates. She wanted to stay in bed and not get up, not even to shower and she wanted to crack open a bottle of vodka and drink it neat,through the bottle neck, get blind drunk and fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. She wondered whether to the left of her there would always be this enormous hole, a hole in the shape of him and as the rain poured in time with her tears she somehow knew it would rain on Sunday aswell.