Survivor's Guilt

by Cassy Roop

  “I take that as a yes?” Evan groaned huskily as his eyes shone with lust, glazed over with want, and softened with need.

  “Yes,” was all I was able to reply as the tension in my muscles relaxed and my body became flooded with warmth.

  In one swift move, Evan scooped me up in his arms, carried me around and placed me on the bed. The down feathered duvet molded to my back, surrounding me in softness and comfort. The first time I was with Evan, I was completely terrified. I’d never been with another man besides Jeremy. Although it was foreign, I enjoyed every minute of it. Noticing how we came together perfectly, like we were designed to be together.

  Evan removed his shirt, once again rewarding me with the mouth-watering muscles of his abs and chest. I bit my lip as I watched his biceps flex as he pulled the shirt over his head. His blue eyes connected with mine once he was free of the fabric and the small smile on his face made him look devastatingly handsome. I wanted that smile on his face every day. I wanted to see the joy in his eyes that only I could bring him. I made a promise to myself to achieve that goal for every day that I remained here with him.

  “You have way too many clothes on,” he said as he walked over and slowly began unbuttoning my blouse, the tips of his fingers making the smallest touch against the skin of my chest and stomach.

  “That is so much better,” he admired as he took in the achy swell of my breasts that threatened to burst from the cups of my bra.

  Lying down beside me, he caressed the skin of my cheeks with his thumb before he devoured my lips in a painfully slow and seductive kiss.

  Slowness turned to swiftness.

  Swiftness turned to frantic.

  Frantic turned into desperate need.

  When we finally came together and Evan filled me, all pain, all hurt and anxiety melted away. He was a soothing balm to my soul. A medication that only he had the prescription to. My heart would never heal completely, but with Evan, it could damn near come close.

  LETTERS

  “TAKE ONE OF THE NOTEBOOKS from the stack over by the chair please. Each person should have one,” Sandi said pointing next to where Ellie was sitting. Another month had passed since we began therapy a few months ago. In the beginning, I thought it was the stupidest thing that anyone should have to go through. Now, I’m eating my thoughts because if it weren’t for Ellie and this group, I don’t think I could be coping as well as I was with Lilly’s death.

  One of the biggest reasons was currently sitting across from me. I smiled as I took in her long green sundress that made her eyes look extremely blue. We’ve been taking things slowly, enjoying the leisure of getting to know one another more on a personal basis. There have been many nights that we have sat together and talked while eating dinner or watching television. I learned all about her family, North Carolina, and the Ellie I never knew growing up. I would watch as she animatedly told me about her cousins and their crazy antics while she was in high school. She told me about her job as a paralegal and how she worked for a brilliant small town lawyer who treated her well. Knowing that upon completion of the counseling, she wouldn’t have a theft on her records was reassuring.

  “I want you to all start keeping a journal,” Sandi said breaking through my thoughts. “Over the next four weeks, each day, you will answer the same questions.

  How do you feel about yourself today?

  Have you internally punished yourself today?

  What did you do today to make you feel good?

  At the end of the week, I want you to see if you find a pattern of behavior. Are you good, or are you hard on yourself, and what was the most constant feeling you had all week. At the end of the four weeks, we’ll meet with you one on one, and we’ll see how your path is going toward acceptance with your grief.”

  I looked at the journal in my hands, taking in the faux leather binding as I flipped if from front to back. Writing down my thoughts wasn’t something that I felt completely comfortable with, but yet neither had going to counseling in the first place. I thought that being optimistic about it would be better than hanging onto the dread of it.

  “I want you to think about your journal as being your ‘silent listening partner’. When you write, it helps keep the grieving process to continue from the inside out and a majority of the time helps us get rid of our thoughts when we aren’t ready to talk. Constructively, it also helps us put our anxiety or anger toward an inanimate object instead of taking it out of our families or other loved ones. Most importantly, it could help you diminish any feelings of guilt you may be harboring.”

  My head snapped to Sandi’s as soon as she had said the word guilt. Throughout the last few months, my feelings for Ellie had grown steadily to the point that thoughts of her began to overpower my thoughts of Lilly. That is when the guilt would hit me. If someone were to tell me that in only a few short months after the death of my wife, I would find solitude and feelings for another woman, I would have punched them in the throat for being so ridiculous.

  “Open your journals to the first page. On this page, I want you to write a letter to your loved one. Start off by telling them when you miss them most. Work your way towards telling them what you learned from them. I know most of you didn’t get to say goodbye to your loved ones. If you could, what would you say? Put it all on the page.”

  Everyone flipped open their journals and began writing. I lifted my eye gaze to find Ellie looking at me. Her cheeks blushed, as if embarrassed that she got caught. I smiled at her trying to offer reassurance. When her eyes flicked from me to the journal in her hands and back again, I offered her a nod. She was probably feeling the same thing I was feeling when Sandi announced the letter. If one kind of guilt wasn’t enough, we had another. Even though it was understood between us about our love for our deceased spouses, we felt guilty for thinking about all the great memories we had with them. That in turn seemed to try and tarnish the new memories that Ellie and I worked to create.

  One longer glance at me, then Ellie went to work on her letter. Clicking the pen, I too, began writing.

  Lilly,

  I miss you most when I am lying in bed at night. I miss the comfort our your warmth and the steady rhythm of your heart as you slept. It was my own personal lullaby that always drew me into the most peaceful rest nearly every night. Now, I toss and turn most nights, barely finding comfort in closing my eyes, yet deeply wanting to because sometimes you come to me then.

  I think the greatest thing I learned from you was the ability to love unconditionally. To offer my heart and soul to someone and never ask for anything in return and getting my satisfaction from seeing someone so blissfully happy. You would have given me your ability to hear if I were deaf. Your capability to talk if I were mute. In the end, I also know you would have given me the beat of your heart if it meant that I lived while you died. You never asked me to love you because you made it so incredibly easy to do so. So thank you my love, for showing me what it really meant to sacrifice yourself for someone you loved more than your own life.

  If I had the chance to say anything to you before I knew I would never see you again, it would be to tell you over and over how much I love you. I would repeat the words until my voice gave out in order to fill your mind and your heart with those words to last you forever. I would imprint the sound of my voice saying them, so that every time you have a vacant thought, or even had any doubt of my feelings for you, you would know. You would know that you were the most precious gift that God had ever given me.

  I have no doubt in my mind that you are just as loving in death as you were in life. I know that coming to me in my dreams and telling me that I need to move on was your way of telling me that I have the strength to go on without you. You knew me better than I ever could have known myself. I also know that you would want me to be happy, but the guilt I feel keeps me from doing that.

  You see, there’s this girl. You know her. She was on the boat the night I lost you. You both chatted, you’ve spoke to me about her in my
dreams. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but in a weird and sick twist of fate, I feel as if she was there that night for a purpose. A greater purpose than any of us could ever try to understand. If it weren’t for her, I don’t think I would be here today. Yes, I know you don’t want to hear it, but in the beginning, I thought that if you were dead, then I might as well be too. My purpose for waking in the morning was gone. The breath that I had breathed for four years had left me gasping for oxygen and nothing to replenish it with.

  If I thought it was strange that she was on the boat that night, it was even more bizarre that she just happened to be the one on the Jet Ski that day. I took off out into the ocean to save the crazed mad woman who had a death wish of her own.

  Talking to you about feelings for another woman is incredibly difficult for me, Lilly. In fact there is a stabbing pain in my chest as I write these words. But I feel as if she was somehow sent to me by either you, or God, or some other power to fill the empty void left in my soul. She has brought sunshine to the darkness that has consumed me. Provided me with the air I needed in order to breathe again.

  But there is also the fear I am hanging onto that she will be leaving soon. We both have separate lives, families, jobs. What will become of me then? Dealing with the loss of you was hard enough, but eventually I will have to deal with the loss of her too.

  I wish you were here. I wish you would guide me and tell me what I need to do. But I guess if you were here, I wouldn’t have a need to be writing this letter.

  I love you Lilly. I’ll love you forever and a day and will keep you in my heart where you have always been, until the day we are reunited.

  Yours forever,

  Evan

  ***

  I WATCHED AS EVAN furiously wrote in his journal. It bothered me that his words could flow so easily when I kept staring at the only word I had written down.

  Jeremy.

  What was I supposed to say to him? How could I consciously pour my heart out to him when I couldn’t keep my thoughts from gravitating to the other side of the room towards Evan? Taking a deep breath, I finally stared at the page, before closing my eyes. The truth. That was what I needed to say.

  Jeremy,

  Miss wouldn’t be the right word. It is such a small word in the English language, yet is probably one of the most emotional words that there is. Sure, it has a definition, but you never truly understand it’s meaning until you have lost someone you loved very deeply. So I can’t tell you how much I miss you because there is no word nor definition that could even begin to explain that to you.

  I learned so much from you in the time we were together. Most importantly, I learned how to laugh. I learned how to look at each day differently, embrace each moment like it would be my last. Little did I know that your time would be so short. You lived every day with passion, with drive, with the ability to make everyone around you fall instantly and completely in love with you. Everything you did, you did with your heart and soul, especially when it came to loving me. I never had to sacrifice one ounce of happiness when it came to you because my happiness was your happiness.

  I hate that some days I can’t remember your face, or what your voice sounded like. I deleted the voicemails months ago because the more I listened to them, the more I had to come to terms with the fact that you weren’t coming home. I had to realize that the hopes and dreams we had with each other were no longer going to be. I’ve had to survive with only the memory of your love, and as great and wonderful as it was, I feel you fade away a little more everyday.

  The only thing, or person I should rather say, that has been the comfort that I needed, is in this room. When I’m with Evan, the tightness in my chest eases and the pain that comes from losing you gets a little easier. It doesn’t go away, and I know it never will, but he gives me hope that someday, maybe someday, I will get to experience what I felt with you once again. I have felt lost ever since the day you died, but Evan has been the navigation that has kept me on a path to keeping my sanity. He has guided me, offered comfort and opened my heart to new possibilities no matter how scary they may be.

  I know you would want me to be happy, and honestly if I saw myself being able to move on, it would be with Evan. God, I hate talking to you about this, but when we have made love, it was the only time that I truly felt relief. Like complete and total relief from the loss and pain.

  I want you to know that no one could ever replace you. No one could ever fill the spot within me that you own. But as you said, there is so much more left of me to give, but I’m scared. Jeremy, I don’t think I could ever deal with losing someone again like I did with you. The only thing in common Evan and I have is this place and our grief. Even though my feelings for him seem to grow stronger every day, I can’t help but feel like I am setting myself up for devastation all over again when we eventually have to return to real life. We have been living in an alternate life for several months now. A universe where you and Lilly are no longer here, but yet we are a soothing comfort to one another. What happens when we find out that the two of you are the only reason why he and I are together? What then? I couldn’t survive another heartbreak.

  I wish I could talk to you. Hold you. Lose myself in your encouraging words and seek the comfort you have always brought me.

  I know you are with me everywhere I go. You are in everything I see, everything I feel and everything I want to do. I love you. And I will always love you until the day I take my last breath.

  Forever,

  Ellie

  Journal Week One

  MONDAY

  How do you feel about yourself today?

  Today was a rough day. Having to write a letter of goodbye to Jeremy and confess my feelings for Evan was probably one of the hardest things I have had to do other than bury my husband.

  Have you internally punished yourself today?

  I did. I have beaten myself up most of the night after the guilt consumed me for the letter. I degraded myself over and over to the point my stomach was in knots and I felt nauseous.

  What did you do today to make you feel good?

  I sought comfort in the only person who could make me feel better.

  “I HAVE PLANS FOR US TOMORROW,” Evan confessed as we reclined on the sofa, my back to his front, while he drew lazy circles on my forearm with his fingertips.

  “Oh yeah? And just what plans do you have?”

  “Every year there is this craft festival in town. Lots of homemade stuff. Food. Jewelry, you name it. I want to take you. But it is down on the beach.”

  I stiffened briefly in his arms. I hadn’t been to the beach since the night I ran out of the karaoke bar. Even then, I didn’t think it registered how close I was to it due to the overwhelming memory of the song that was chosen.

  “It will be okay. We’ll be together. I’ll look after you and you look after me. Sandi told us to get out and do things, remember? There are going to be things that bring us close to where we lost Lilly and Jeremy, but in order for us to move on and accept it, we have to confront those things and show that they have no power over us.”

  I turned onto my side to face him and smiled when I saw his blue eyes twinkling back at me.

  “When did you get so philosophical?” I teased, patting his chest with the palm of my hand.

  “What do you mean ‘get’? I’ve always been this smart,” he teased back, a devilishly boyish smile on his lips, just before he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine.

  ***

  THE BEACHFRONT WAS filled with tons of vendors. The smell of popcorn, homemade bagels and other deliciously bad for you foods, filtered through the air. My stomach rumbled with hunger, reminding me that I could quite possibly eat one of everything on the entire one mile stretch.

  Evan and I walked side by side eyeing all of the homemade trinkets, clothes, and other goodies. I tried to keep my anxiety at bay by resisting the urge to look out at the open water every opportunity I had.

  “These are neat. Wha
t are they?” I asked one of the vendors as I eyed a strand of beads with a large hole on one end and a smaller loop on the other. In the center was a turquoise bird that was surrounded by two small sterling silver hearts.

  “They are called barefoot sandals,” the older lady said as she stood up from her chair and walked over to where Evan and I were standing, looking at the display case.

  “What is a barefoot sandal?” Evan asked, interrupting before I even had the chance to ask the question myself.

  “Traditionally, they originate from South Asia. They were worn in celebration or for ceremonies like weddings. They can be worn by themselves, or they can be worn with open top sandals or flip flops.”

  Flipping open the case, the older woman reached for the exact pair that I was looking at.

  “Did you make these by hand?”

  “I did,” she said as she removed them from the case and with shaky fingers placed them in my hands.

  “This pair is very special,” she said as I eyed the beautiful beads of alternating colors. It was the tiny bird that drew my eye.

  “I made these for someone. I don’t know who. They day I sat down, I just had a feeling that they belonged to a specific person. The bird you see has two hearts. They are of equal size and one no more important than the other. The bird in the middle is surrounded by the hearts because the bird needs those two hearts in order to fly. They are her foundation, provide her the air she needs in order to get off the ground.”

  Tears sprang to the back of my eyes as I looked at the beautiful work that this woman put her heart into. She had no idea just how close to home her story was hitting.