It’s been two months since I entered the hospital.

Eight months since my world, my heart and my soul died.

Darkness is all I see.

Everything is black.

I feel nothing.

The doctors at the hospital tell me that there are five stages of grief and I have stayed permanently on the first one: DENIAL. They can’t help me if I am not willing to help myself. But I strongly disagree. I can’t deny I’m hurting. I haven’t denied that I want my husband back. So why do they insist I’m in denial?

I know he is gone and nothing I do will bring him back. So why do they confuse grieving with denial? I have the right to mourn my dead husband. I have the right to know when I am ready to move on.

“Like I told him, he has to stop cheating on me. Or I will show him what crazy really looks like,” the blonde to my left says. Dr. Duarte thinks that group therapy will be able to start the healing. But it has done nothing to help me to move even a step closer, especially when I don’t want to take any steps. So now every day I get to spend time with a bunch of depressed people who have lost someone due to death or breakup.

“Melanie, it is not cheating when you are not in a relationship with the person.” Our group counselor Jimmy tries to rationalize with her for the fifth time. Melanie is your typical manipulator ex-girlfriend. Every time her ex has a new girlfriend, she swallows a bunch of pills. If she really wanted to kill herself, she should use something stronger than Advil. The love she has for him is the wrong kind. Love is supposed to make you feel alive. Just knowing that other person loves you as much as you love them brings peace to your life. Not hate and restraining orders.

“But I love him. No one will love him like I do, he just needs to understand that. I breathe him. I live for him. Why can’t he just love me back?” she cries, looking at all of us. Tears stream down her face. I look around the circle, pity pouring out of all the other lost souls that gather in this oppressing grey and white ‘living room.’ Gosh, if I actually felt like doing something I would redo this room. My inner designer is trying to come back to life, but like everything else in my life, all I see is nothing.

I don’t have any pity for her. At least she gets to touch him, smell him, see him, and hear his voice.

“Yes, you might love him, but he does not love you. That does not make a healthy relationship. You have to learn to let go, move on and find someone else that will return your feelings. What do you like to do besides your current activities?”

“You mean when she is not stalking her poor douche bag of an ex?” Cindy asks. “She likes to research different ways to commit suicide but not really die. Just make sure to give her ex a good scare.”

“Cindy, our motto is to not be judgmental about anyone’s feelings and actions,” Jimmy reprimands her. Cindy just rolls her eyes at him. Cindy was diagnosed with PTSD, after she came back from a tour in Iraq. There are actually five of us that makes up this ‘support’ group. Cindy (ex-marine, PTSD), Melanie (ex-girlfriend psycho), Matt (drunk driver killed his family- depression), Juanita (her husband of forty years died) and me (the widow in denial). Jimmy’s fiancée died of breast cancer when she was twenty- six years old seven months before their wedding. Depressing. I haven’t shared my story with the group. Jimmy always pushed me every meeting at first, but once he saw how stubbornly tight-lipped I was, he stopped. I just sit here and hear all their stories for one hour each day.

“I have homework for you, for the next week I want all of you to do something together as a group. You are to engage in conversation that has nothing to do with what you went through or the reasons you are all here. I want you talk about the future. What are your dreams? Where do you see yourselves in five months or in six years? Remember: no judgment. He understands that we all have been destroying ourselves and pushing our family away. We have chosen to be by ourselves. That’s one of the reasons Dr. Duarte made me come here too. He felt that if I would hear the stories maybe, then I would be able to start the recovery phase of my depression. To understand that I was not alone in my grief or in my pain.

“Now, does anyone else want to share anything today, before we leave?” he asks looking straight at me. I glare back. Nope I am fine. He looks away. “Okay, see you next week and I want to hear all about your assignment. Group dismissed. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon before your sessions with Dr. D.” Everyone gets up to leave. “Sophia, can I have a word please?”

I don’t get up. He comes and sits on the chair next to me.

“Sophia, I know you are hurting and you don’t want to be here in the group but I can’t report about your progress to Dr. D if there isn’t any. We have been having these meetings for two months and you have not yet open up at least once or joined in the group discussion. If you really want to leave here, you need to start joining in.”

I look at him and I get up, walking away. I never said I wanted to leave. Actually, I haven’t said anything at all in two months. I will not congregate more than necessary. I walk down the hall and I see Cindy and Juanita walk into the facility chapel.

Did I mention that I hate God? It was never the case before, but after giving me something so beautiful, he took it away without warning. How can I love someone that has cost me the greatest pain? How can I forgive that?

I TRY GETTING up. The sun shines through the holes that my curtains allow, marking another day here. Another day inside these four white walls; the scene that came to be my home for the last two months. I can see the light shining on the desk in the corner of the room, the only surface that has something on it: our wedding photograph. This is the only picture that was not damaged when I had the episode in the hallway so long ago. I have a dresser where I keep my clothes, but that’s about all that the room smaller than my walk-in closet at home can fit.

Home. I can’t think about it without longing and pain.

Small lights reflect tiny dots on my white sheets, trying their hardest to show me that there are even small circles of light in all my darkness.

I agreed to come here mostly for my father, my rock. I could see the despair and hopelessness in the depth of his brown eyes, so similar to mine. He was there for me when my mother’s expectations went beyond the norm. He ate my burnt chorizo the first time I attempted to cook breakfast at age the twelve. When I turned sixteen, he showed me how to drive, even against my mother wishes. He dried my tears when I felt I was not beautiful enough for the boys at school. I hate to see him hurting when I am the cause. If this could make him believe that he was helping me, then I would do it. I hope that my parents not seeing me grieve would be much better for them. I have declined every visitation request my parents have petitioned for. I am not ready to see them yet. Their anguish brought be here, but this place has also given me the escape I was seeking; a hideaway from their expectations for me to move on.

“Wake up, sunshine. Dr. Duarte is waiting for you in his office,” Glenda, my nurse, says as she does the same thing she does every morning since I was admitted. She opens my curtains and turns to smile at me. And I do what I do every morning. I push my blankets away and walk towards the window and close those damn curtains, stubbornly crossing my arms.

“One day, sunshine. One day,” she says sweetly and she walks out.

Changing my clothes and brushing my teeth, I walk out of my suite, making my way to Dr. Duarte’s office.

“Hi, Sophia. Take a seat, he will be right with you,” Lori, his nurse informs me as she gestures me to sit on the couch. To wait. Dr. Duarte has been very patient for the last two months. Him asking questions and me ignoring them, keeping silent. I wish I could express my feelings but every time I want to, I get this overwhelming feeling to just scream. I am so bombarded with memories that I don’t know which one to talk about or where to start.

“Good morning, Sophia,” Dr. Duarte says in greeting as he makes his way to his chair across from the couch where I sit. He has this serious look on his faces. His glasses obscure his eyes, but I can still see the jade in his green eyes. His dirty blonde hair is perfectly in place like always. His sweater vest always reminds me of Mr. Rogers. Even though he is only in his late thirties, his face is smoother than mine, and he is definitely more put together than me.

“How has your week been going?” Always the same question. And it is always the same answer in my head, the way it was last week and every week since Will’s death.

Empty. Cold. Endless. Without meaning.

“If you feel like that, why continue to live?” I look up to his eyes staring at me. I had no idea I had said that aloud.

“I promised.” I can hear the huskiness, the gruffness in my voice. I have not used it in about two months.

“Promised what?” he asks. The surprise is evident in his voice, surprised at the fact that I am actually talking. His question came slowly, like he didn’t want to scare my voice away.

“Will,” I answered trying to look at anything besides his eyes. I have no clue why that memory came so vividly into my mind.

“I will make the popcorn and you start the movie babe.” Walking toward the kitchen, I grab a pot and turn the stove to low. I grab the corn kennel from the pantry.

“Why do we have to watch Romeo and Juliet, again? And don’t say because of Leonardo DiCaprio,” Will yells from the living room.

“What other reason would there be?”

“You do know he has done so many other movies besides his one.” I can hear the opening song come on. I love Romeo and Juliet; the Shakespearean tragic love story made me realize that there is no reason to wait to be with the person you love. Even though it doesn’t have a happily-ever-after, there was a great love that not even death could tear apart.

I pour the popcorn into a bowl and grab two sodas on my way to the living room. Setting the bowl on Will’s lap, I get comfy wrapping myself within his arms. My favorite place to be.

During the Capulet and Montague family drama, Will made me promise something that I never thought I would ever have to keep. Not this soon.

“Sophia, promise me something.”

“Yeah, anything babe.”

“No, Sophia I’m serious Baby, look at me.” Grabbing my chin from his chest, he turns me to face him. I look at the depth of his sky blue eyes.

“Will, you are worrying me,” I say, concern emitting from my eyes.

“Promise me you will choose to live. If I ever die, promise me you will move on and continue with your life. Don’t choose Juliet’s way. Don’t follow me into death. Live and fall in love again.”

“Will, never. You can’t make me promise you that. Besides, that is never going to happen. So don’t worry about it.” I scramble to sit up from where were laying together.

“Sophia, I know how spontaneous you are. And you feel too much. I love you for that, but I want you to promise me that you will move on and not let yourself die after I’m gone.” He looks at me with so much determination that I do the only thing I can to remove the worry from his beautiful eyes.

“I promise.”

“Do you think that you are honoring that promise, Sophia? You living here, because you don’t want to face the reality of him not being alive. Is that honoring, his promise? This is not living, this is just being. Wasting away little by little. I will never know what you are going through, but I hope I can help you deal with it. You just have to trust me. Trust me to help you overcome your grieve,” he says as he gets up to hand me a tissue. I was crying through that memory. “I am glad that you were able to share that with me today. We might be making progress, but if not then I am honored that you shared Will with me.” I look at him and smile my first real smile in a long time.

I walk to my room. I still have an hour before lunch. I might not feel better, but the heaviness in my heart feels a bit lighter. I can’t believe I was able to recall a complete memory of Will and me together. I am so absorbed in my memories that I don’t feel the brush of someone in the hall but I do feel the heat that runs up and down my body. I look over my shoulder to see who I bumped into and I am met with green eyes the color of moss staring back at me. He also stops and turns to see me. As I assess his body, I see something that brings the chill back to my soul. I rush inside my room, shutting the door hard. I can still see the reflection of the ceiling lights in the motorcycle helmet he was holding.