Page 8 of Feels Like Coming Home

My mom had come as soon as she could and was determined to stay with me until she saw me eat, shower, and go outside for longer than five minutes all in the same day. At this rate, she would be living with me forever.

She was waiting for me at my house the following day once I got back from meeting with the police who had taken the call for Connor’s accident. She came with me to the hospital when I had to fill out paperwork on what we were doing with his body after they had taken his organs for donations—he always said he wanted his body to be used for something good once he was gone. And she slept on the couch every night without complaining because I was sleeping in the guest room.

Our bed had sat empty since the day I lost Connor. I didn’t have the strength to crawl under the covers that once kept us both warm and safe night after night. I didn’t have the strength to do much of anything anymore it seemed. Anytime I tried to move throughout my day like normal, I was hit with the realization that Connor was gone and never coming back, which always left me in a heap of sobs on the floor.

Grief is a funny thing. It’s silent until it's not. It’s something you know exists, but you never truly know what it looks like until it’s staring you in the face. Like a dark creature sitting in the back of your brain, it waits for the day it’s called out and when it comes, it crushes you under its massive, unbearable weight.

And I couldn’t bear the weight.

I couldn’t hold it, and I couldn’t get it to let go of me.

So instead, I let it sit on me—day in and day out—because the thought of trying to fight it was just as painful as letting it consume me.

I was curled up in the queen-size bed that we bought for the guest room when we purchased this house five years ago when I heard a faint knock on the door.

“Hey, Hays…” my mother called to me, using the nickname she gave me when I was little. “I'm heading to the store, do you need anything?”

I was facing away from her with the covers pulled up, so if you weren’t looking at me you would think I was asleep.

My mother knew better though and continued, “Piper is coming over to see you, she mentioned bringing you your favorite from the local Thai place, would that be okay?”

Thai. We were supposed to have Thai that night.

The sheer thought of its smell brought me back to that day. The day I lost him. Thinking about not having Thai with him again made tears well up in my eyes. My stomach flipped at the idea.

“I’m not hungry,” I whispered, blinking back the tears so she wouldn’t come any closer.

“Are you sure? You haven’t eaten yet today…” my mom pressed, leaning a little closer into the room.

“I said, I’m not hungry and I don’t want any fucking Thai food in the house.” My words came out more pointed than I intended, and I heard my mother take a deep breath.

“Alright, Hays, whatever you want. I’ll tell Piper to just come over. She should be here in the next half hour. If you change your mind and want anything from the store, just text me.”

I heard her close the door and I was alone again. I tried to sleep, or better yet, I tried to get myself to wake up from what I could only believe was a never-ending nightmare. Connor wasn’t gone, I was just asleep and needed to wake up. If I did, he would be lying there next to me, just like he had for the last ten years.

Connor and I met our sophomore year at college and it was love at first sight. For so long, I had told myself that the only men in my life were the ones who left or chose other people, no matter how much I showed them I loved them. I was walking into my public speaking class and sat down at one of the tables when I looked up to see this guy with metal-framed glasses walk in. I watched him as he strolled through the class, walked up the stairs, and then pulled out the seat right next to mine and sat down. Never in my life had I ever seen a man as beautiful as he was, with his tousled ashy hair and soft blue eyes.

And the glasses—don’t even get me started about the glasses.

I must have forgotten to close my mouth or move or look anything like a normal human because when he noticed me staring at him, he started laughing.

“You know, there’s a lot of bugs in this room. If you don’t close your mouth, one might fly into it,” he leaned over and whispered in my ear.

We were dating by the following weekend and married the summer after we graduated.

Everything with Connor was so easy. He made me laugh, challenged what I said but in a way that was interesting and sparked conversation, and he told me I was beautiful every morning when we woke up next to one another. Even on the days when we didn’t wake up next to one another, because one of us was traveling or before we lived together, I had a ‘Good morning, beautiful’ text waiting for me to read.

Every day I felt safe with him, happy with him, and loved by him. Never once in our ten-year relationship did I get the sense that he was going to bolt like my dad did or suddenly decide there was someone better. He looked me in the eyes when he listened to me, supported my crazy ideas while keeping his apprehension to himself, and never told me there was something I couldn’t do. He was the first man to love me like he did.

And now he was gone.

As I was failing miserably to wake up from this life that had to be a nightmare, I heard the front door open and knew Piper had finally made it to the house. I heard her open up the fridge and close it again, then the sounds of her unloading and loading the dishwasher. After she was done, she ascended the stairs toward the place where she knew she would find me.

She opened the door, moved to the side of the bed I was facing, and put her face directly into mine.

“Hi. I spoke to Martha and she told me you were in here. When was the last time you left this room?” my best friend questioned. She was so close I could smell the coffee on her breath.

“I don’t know. She made me shower this morning but I managed to put the same clothes back on and then crawled back into bed before she could stop me,” I mumbled, pulling the covers even closer to my eyes.

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