I'll Still Love You Tomorrow - Snippet

I'm not sure why but today I seem to be in a slightly melancholic mood. I indulged myself and wrote a scene from a novel that has been torturing me for a while. The novel is currently titled, "I'll Still Love You Tomorrow". This is all I have of it down on paper, the rest keeps on circling my mind, every so often popping up to torture me with scenes and the character of Rachel. Her sense of loss is so strong in my mind that I can practically taste it.

Anyway, thought I'd post it here to see what you thought of it.

I'll Still Love You Tomorrow

The world is a very dark place when you find yourself alone. It wasn’t something I had truly believed would happen to me. I’d never really believed that he would leave me, that I would be forced to face an uncertain future without him by my side holding my hand. 

The moment you realise you’re alone, that moment when it really hits you is like being buried alive. I’d watched the light leave his eyes, watched the air rattle out of his lungs for the last time, watched his chest sink down, his body growing still. And even then, after watching all of that, I still hadn’t believed that he would leave me. I know it sounds stupid but it was how I felt after he was gone.

I held Tom’s hand in mine and watched him die. Although the cancer had completely ravaged his body, shrinking him down in the bed until there was practically nothing left he was still the first man I’d ever fallen in love with. A part of me still expected him to open his eyes grip my hand in his and sit up, and although these were all things he hadn’t done in months, I still believed him capable of it.

From the first moment he had been diagnosed with the cancer we had fought it together, neither one of us giving up or letting go of the other. We had doctors and nurses, specialists and therapists telling us on a regular basis that there was no hope, there was no cure. And still we struggled on, battling through every chemo treatment that made him sick to his stomach. Each bout of radiation weakened him further, weakened his body but never his spirit. He didn’t want to leave me. It was a promise we made to one another but death doesn’t care about childish promises you make in the dead of night. Death is simply there, waiting for the moment when your body can’t cope with living anymore. And when that moment comes, then you’re gone.

Tom was gone.

Every time the thought hit me, it stole the very air from my lungs. How was I supposed to carry on? I’d fought for so long to keep him that I had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself now.

The wreckage of our shared life together surrounded me in our little house. How could I live here when everywhere I looked there were memories of him, memories of all our happy times spent together. Memories that were now broken by his absence. The memories weren’t the only thing broken by the loss of him. I was broken.

I lay on the bed, my body too exhausted to even climb beneath the covers. It had been like this since the funeral. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to open my eyes, it hurt to think, it hurt to live. I was a living breathing raw nerve ending. There wasn’t a moment that passed me by that I didn’t pray for oblivion. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to live anymore. Without him, what was the point?