Last Year

It was a new year. Outside my window, a group of children were engaged in a snowball fight. As I watched them, I imagined what I would say to him.

I knew you, once. Now, it’s all business. Every communication starts with “hello” and never “hi.” Every word, chosen carefully, deliberately. Only a quick ask, signed with a “best,” and never a “love.” It happened so swiftly… “we” can never be “us” because “us” lives in the past now, the direction opposite from our path of travel.

Even though you aren’t here, I will never be without you. “You” live in the way I sauce my noodles, how I look for faces in clouds, and in the names I give strangers inside my head. “Hurry up and turn, Nancy.” “Look at Rick over there in sporting goods; he has no idea his vest is on inside out.”

When everything is quiet - around me and within me - I wonder what your day was like. If you’re eating. What clothes you’re wearing. Do you still wear those boots I bought you? Does the wardrobe I hand-picked still feel like an expression of you? Or does it remind you of us? Do you rip the clothes off your body and throw them aside with complete and utter disdain for…me?

I inhaled a shaky breath and grounded myself. I thought about the carpet between my toes, the sound of the fan overhead, the tickle of the slight chill in the air as it breezed across my forearm.

The divorce was finalized last month. An “early Christmas present,” my mom had joked. 

Hugging myself tightly, I traced my fingers over my elbows and wondered why I should be cursed to remember what I was dying to forget.

Where do you store the pain? Is there a place within the heart that’s airtight? A brand new Tupperware void of staining, and strong enough to keep everything locked within?

I carried my coffee cup to the sink, its weight settling into my fingers. I feel weak. It’s the only thing I feel when I think of you, I thought.

As I rounded the corner, my cell phone rang. Piper, calling.

“Hey, girlfriend,” I began. “I was just looking at your email, and I’d love to go on that shopping trip. The mall is just--”

“Marie, please,” she interrupted, “please look at channel 4. Do it now, right now.”

I began to protest, but she insisted, “It’s… I’m sorry. It’s Cody. Please, go turn on your TV.”

Cody?

Piper won’t even say his name. Until now.

Confused, I rushed to the living room and grabbed the remote. Color filled the screen, and I changed the channel with shaking hands.

Drone footage showed an SUV that used to park in my driveway, upside down in a ditch. ‘Ridgeway man, 29, killed in a single-vehicle crash’ flashed on the screen.

Suddenly, my ears were full of a heartbeat, and I felt a breath catch in my throat but never let go. The room became blurry, and for a split second, I thought I was going blind. A cold, wet patch on my chest brought the room back into focus. I blinked hard and slowly looked down at my shirt. A stinging sensation on my cheeks, then 5 tear drops quickly fell where many others had apparently already landed. My knees locked, and the room shadowed with a dark vignette.

I collapsed into the armchair.

“Marie?” I heard faintly. “Marie, please, are you still there? I can hear you; please come back on the line with me.”

The phone, still in my hand, was slick with sweat from my clammy palm. I blinked and held it out in front of me. It had to be a dream.

I begged for disassociation. Please, I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to remember this.

Piper was silent, but I watched the screen as the seconds ticked on. She was still here. She was waiting. Dear, sweet Piper… my friend of 20 years. My confidant. The first person I told when I decided to leave Cody. “He’ll die without you,” she’d said. A pang of sickness tugged at my intestines, but my body was a boulder, too heavy to lift. I focused on my breaths. In… one, two, hold… out… one, two.

“I-I…. he’s gone?” I stammered, in no more than a whisper.

This Year

It was his favorite holiday. Sitting bundled up in a cozy blanket on the couch, I stared at the flickering lights of the Christmas tree, which was still up and decorated sparingly with basic, red ornaments.

I was overcome with emotion as I thought about this time last year. New Years Eve was always a big celebration in this house. Decorations, music, and laughter everywhere you looked. And for many years, we ushered in new possibilities with a soft kiss and a shot of Patron.

I’d been invited to a party this evening, but it was already almost nine, and I was in no mood to go out. But this room seemed to dance with ghosts of the past, and even though I’d processed losing him, I found holidays most unbearable.

I slunk into the bathroom and powdered my face, half-heartedly smearing lipstick across my lips. In the closet hung a cobalt blue long-sleeved dress with sequins all over. Cody would think this drew too much attention. He hated other men looking at me. I smiled and took it off the hanger. It was the perfect dress to wear tonight. I quickly stepped into a pair of black stilettos, running out the door to catch a cab.

The cityscape blurred through the taxi window as we crossed town. Laughter and the rhythmic beat of music greeted me as I stepped into the warm, pulsating heart of the party. The atmosphere was buzzing with joy and anticipation.

I weaved through the crowd, a sea of unfamiliar faces, each lost in the revelry of the moment. As I navigated the dance floor, I helped myself to a glass of champagne and looked for Piper. She was alone, dancing with her eyes closed. When she saw me, surprise touched her features before she looked at me relieved and flashed her winning smile.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said into my ear.

I thought about it for a moment. I hadn’t thought I would, either. But I spent the last year healing, and I… I guess I was finally ready to be happy.

As the clock ticked closer to midnight, the countdown echoing through the room, I danced without inhibition, snuggling close to my friend and laughing real, unbridled laughter.

The clock struck twelve, and the room erupted into cheers.

It was then that I saw him. Cody, standing across the room, amidst the swirl of bodies and flashing lights.

For a moment, the world stopped. The room spun, and I could feel the weight of our shared history press against my chest. His presence, so vivid and real, cut through the layers of my carefully constructed reality. It was as if time had folded, merging the past and present in an unexpected collision. Could I be imagining it?

"Cody?" I managed to whisper, my voice barely audible over the distant fireworks. I stood frozen as he made his way through the throng of bodies to the bar, blissfully unaware of my presence.

Suddenly, it was Piper’s eyes I was looking into. “Shit,” she yelled over the bass, “I didn’t know he’d be here.”

The realization hit me like a sudden gust of wind, chilling me to my bones.

Cody was alive.

The ghosts of the past were not confined to the familiar rooms of my home but lingered in the corners of every celebration, every shared memory. Yet, I understood now that these specters were created within my own mind. With a deep breath, I embraced the paradox of the moment. The imagined delusion, the cocoon of grief I had constructed, dissolved like mist in the warmth of the New Year's celebration.

Was he better off dead in the confines of my mind? Easier to grieve him in the furthest finality there is?

In that crowded room, Cody's figure became a distant echo. The festivities continued, as the first moments of the new year unfolded, and I realized that sometimes, the ghosts of our past are not there to haunt us but to remind us that we are, indeed, better off living than holding onto the shadows of what might have been. “Auld Lang Syne” filled the room, the crowd drunken and lively as they sang along.

I collected my jacket and headed out to the street. Snow was softly falling, and there was no cab in sight. I walked toward the subway and thought about the past year. Twelve months of grief after imagined death, yet the journey from the imagined to the real, from the weight of sadness to the lightness of life, happened in just a short moment.

Standing alone on the sidewalk, I wondered what would happen next. I continued on into the snowy night, embracing the uncertainty. I knew, now, that the journey from delusion to reality had sculpted a stronger, more resilient version of me. The ghosts of the past were behind me, and the promise of a new beginning lay ahead. In the soft hush of falling snow, I welcomed the unknown, ready to live fully in the moments yet to unfold.