~Elli~
“Would you stop staring at me like that, Jen?” I playfully scowl in my best friend’s direction while she just keeps staring at me. She’s been like this since she picked me up twenty minutes ago, it is for sure pissing me off and not just because she is driving and not paying attention to the road. “Girlfriend, you are wearing makeup. You haven’t worn even a little mascara in two whole years.” She says this with an air of astonishment as if me wearing makeup is the biggest thing to ever happen.
I glance down at my hands clutching my phone like it’s going to suddenly fly out of my hands and smirk just a little. “OH MY GOSH, E you’re smiling!” I can almost feel the sonic blast from Jen’s shrieking.
“OUCH Jennifer, what the hell is wrong with you!?” I giggle and shake my head, my hair falling in front of my eyes, another shield I put up when life feels a little too close. I like to pretend I live in a bubble of grief and hiding from life becoming normal again is just what I do. I guess it is kind of a big deal, she hasn’t seen me make any effort to be anyone but a broken woman in what feels like forever. I really did try once, I used to love getting primped up and polished with her and hitting the clubs, dancing the night away.
I sit back for a bit and breathe deep, I feel good. For the first time in quite a while, I feel just a little more okay than I have been. Today I woke up and just felt like I could breathe a little deeper than I have in the past two years, not that I will ever get over the pain of losing Garrett, But, you know what? Mascara won’t kill me.
I feel Jen side eyeing me again so I turn my full attention to her, twisting around in my seat. I level her gaze, knowing she has something to say and won’t let me be until she gets it out.
“Honey, I don’t know what happened to bring this on but…I am so glad it did.” She gets watery at the last part and reaches out for my hand, which of course I take in my own because I didn’t want her to cry because of me.
“Jen, you are my best friend and I know I haven’t been here,” gesturing around me, “in two years, but I finally feel like making an effort again. .” I turn back forward and give her a glance seeing she is full on grinning at me. So I grin back. A week ago I wouldn’t have even smirked and it feels amazing.
We spend hours at the spa, having massages, manicures and pedicures and Jen even talked me in to having a makeover done. Although that might have been the bottle of wine we went through. When she dropped me off at home I grabbed a beer from the fridge and settled into the couch. Garrett’s favorite beer to be exact. I never liked it when he was alive but there’s just something comforting about tasting something he loved. I let the rich deep flavor wash over my senses. It’s almost like he’s here with me again, a small way to connect with him.
The last year when he came off tour was…. devastating. He just no longer resembled the man I married, the man who would do anything for me and would die before ever hiding anything from me. No, he was a stranger that I shared a bed with and it tore me apart. Every. Single. Day.
I take another sip and lean my head back, my blonde hair spreading out across the back of the couch. How could I have not known something was seriously wrong? Was I blind?
No, shaking my head back and forth in pain and frustration. No, I knew something was off, I knew it when I looked into my husband’s deep green eyes. I fucking knew it. But he wouldn’t talk to me and every time I tried to bring up the tour, he would snap at me. My Garrett never snapped at me. He was loving and attentive, he was forthcoming and he absolutely worshipped me.
I don’t know that it is fully my fault for what happened, or that I should be blaming myself but I don’t honestly know how not to. He was my responsibility. That’s what happens in a marriage, you become each other’s responsibility.
I slip into my memories, clutching the bottle tighter. Let the hurt consume you, Elli, give in to it. I let my memories burn me with the white-hot fire that is always right under the surface. I let myself see his face, his big bushy beard his smiling lips under it, his green eyes looking at me adoringly. I smile at that memory using one hand to rub my chest where my heart used to be, remembering how it felt to be looked at like I was truly the only thing on this Earth that made any sense.
But a darker memory follows, his eyes change, they stare at me blankly, his smile no longer fills me up but leaves me empty and alone. I see him the afternoon I left to go have a workout with Jen, I can see his eyes assess me but never truly see me.
Oh God, his eyes. Those eyes that were no longer for me, but lost in some invisible battle I wasn’t allowed to fight with him.
Then I see myself, like I am an ethereal spirit floating above my body watching the scene unfold with curious eyes. I feel myself clutch the bottle so hard I fear it might break. I turn the key in the lock, a huge happy endorphin fueled smile on my face wanting to smother my hubby in kisses.
Elli, don’t do it, don’t go in there! Ethereal me reaches out so close to grabbing me and pulling me back away from the entry of our house, but I cross the threshold anyway and a scream like no one had ever heard ripped through my throat. It was as if I was dying right along with him in that moment. A piece of me did die, along with the bullet that ended my husband’s existence.
Opening my eyes and taking the last of the beer in my mouth I steel myself. I need to tell someone. I need to tell someone how it felt to walk in on him… I need to finally get this off my chest.