I had never given much thought to what tears smelled like, but my pillow was evidence that they do indeed have a most singular odour. The days after Daisy’s funeral were damp and salty. Turns out once you start you can’t stop. And you know what? Mourning is exhausting. I wonder if I was losing sugar out of my eyes or something, because I physically couldn’t get out of bed. Not such a hard-boiled egg after all.
Everyone seemed to understand. They left me alone. I was best left.
I drew the curtains and denied the rest of the world. I pressed pause. I was in sad stasis.
Slipping in and out of a semi-opaque sleep, riddled with dreams of waking up somewhere better, I wished her back. It really, really hurt, like holding it all in so tightly had left finger bruises all around my heart and ribcage.
My hair was chip-shop greasy and my teeth felt furry and my breath smelled of dog but I couldn’t have cared less. You know what killed me the most? She hadn’t meant to, but she’d left ghosts everywhere. In my recent calls list; her photo was still in my contacts; her little red light on Facebook to show she was offline (and wasn’t she just); her most recent tweet about an episode of Sherlock. It sounds stupid, but it was like they were rubbing it in.
Swinging from fizzy, hot sulphuric anger about how sodding unfair it was – why, why her when there are so many awful, awful people in the world, why her? – to sad, sad for my loss, sad she was gone, sad she wouldn’t ever get to the good bit. Sad is heavier than chain mail and, for a while there, I couldn’t get up.
I took her for granted, you know. I think we all did. We were gonna have to live with that. I needed a few days away from everyone – they only reminded me of her too. I took some time out. It was necessary.