Somewhere in Jen’s foggy mind as she slept, she could hear the sound of her alarm going off. She groaned as she stretched in her queen size four poster bed. She reached over to turn the volume down on the radio, the familiar DJ’s voice droning over the radio waves telling her it was going to be a beautiful day. Jen cringed at that statement wishing she could be able to enjoy it. She snuggled down more under the covers wanting the day to be done with already. She felt so exhausted she could have turned over and went back to sleep for the next four hours.
Jen had not slept well the night before, she woke up feeling like she just fell asleep five minutes ago. She felt a knot form deep in the pit of her stomach. She did not want to get up and face this day. This dreaded day. Jen knew it would come once a year on the same date and if this one was painful she couldn’t imagine what the rest of her life would feel like. Why couldn’t it have been cold, gray and rainy, she thought? It would have fit how she was feeling perfectly. She turned her head facing the other half of the bed and stared at it for a moment feeling even more forlorn and lonely. She sighed a sad sigh and slid her hand across to the other side and caressed her hand across the untouched blanket and pillow. She wanted to scream out loud to the world and to God about how unfair it was that she had to live while her husband of four years had to die. Reminiscing about the horrific day brought tears to her eyes and her whole body turned cold. Today would have been their 5th anniversary.
Sometimes Jen could not accept the fact that Alex was not there anymore, she would come home from work some nights expecting him to be there greeting her, she would go to bed at night expecting to feel his strong arms come around her as she slipped into peaceful sleep. She expected to wake up in the middle of the night and find him looking at her with love in his eyes watching her sleep. God, how she missed him. The way he made her feel every time she looked at him. After the accident, Jen had been so traumatized at the events that took place she had been in shock for months afterward. She didn’t know if she could ever recover or let go of him. She had spent a month in the hospital healing from her injuries with countless weeks of rehab. She had lived.
It happened a month and a half after they celebrated their 4th anniversary. They had been driving home from a party at their friend’s house, it was around midnight. The rain pounding on the car was unrelenting and you couldn’t see any more than 5 feet in front of you. Jen remembered that she had held his hand on the way home, she had always had to touch him in some way. Jen had looked over at him admiring him in the darkened car, in disbelief that she had gotten so lucky and that Alex was the greatest thing that would ever happen to her. She had leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek telling him that she loved him so much. He turned his head for a second to gaze into her eyes but that’s all it took. A blinding light took over the car, the headlights of the other car were right in front of us heading straight for them. He had swerved to avoid hitting head on into the other vehicle and lost control on the slick road and they swerved off the road and slammed into a tree. Everything had been so quiet after that. So quiet and still. Jen couldn’t get the awful sound of smashing metal out of her head. She had lost consciousness for several minutes before she came to. She was in so much pain she couldn’t move, some of her ribs were broken along with her leg that had been trapped. She had not dared to move anything else but she had to see Alex so she turned her head.
Alex looked so peaceful with his eyes closed. He had died instantly. The drunk driver in the other car had swerved as well and rolled over into the embankment on the other side of the road and had died as well, later at the hospital. Jen had never experienced such anguish as she had at that moment. It was as if everything happened in slow motion. She knew Alex was gone and she couldn’t do anything about it, she had been trapped, unable to move. A feeling of coldness had started to travel through her body and the intense pain she felt was starting to ease. This is what dying feels like, she thought. I’m going to be with my husband soon and everything will be fine. Her world went black after that and the next time she woke up she had been in a hospital bed in a coma for a week. When she remembered what had happened and that she was still alive, the sorrow for everything that had happened overcame her and she cried for her husband, for her, for the unfairness of it all and the fact that she would never see Alex again.
As Jen went back to that fateful night like she has done so many times, tears streamed down her face.
“Alex, I miss you so much and I love you. I need you.”
She had always prayed to God wanting to know why this happened and always asked for a sign from Alex to let her know that he was ok. She didn’t feel like she could ever let go and move on, her days ever since the accident were a big haze. She felt like her body was keeping her alive, her heart and soul had died with Alex.
Jen buried her head into her pillow and sobbed. They were supposed to go to the Bahamas for their 5th, planning it way before everything happened. They were going to go for two weeks and it was to be the most important time of their life. They were going to start trying to get pregnant. This trip would have changed their lives for the better. Instead she was here in bed alone, saddened by what could have been.
She pulled back the covers and got up slowly, going to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and she saw a pale face with dark circles under her eyes staring back. She had not been taking care of herself she knew that. It didn’t matter now, she thought. She stared at herself for a few minutes until the image in the mirror started to become distorted and she didn’t recognize who that person was. She bent down and washed her face with cold water trying to rub the exhaustion out of her puffy eyes. Jen disrobed and stepped into the shower. She let the hot stream of water relax her a little bit, it flooded over her body running down until it ended up in the drain.
She leaned against the wall of the shower letting it run over her head and down her back. She knew it would darken her world even more but she closed her eyes imaging Alex there with her. He was pressed up against the back of her body, his hands running with the water down her body touching her breasts, her tummy and then reaching down to her triangle opening her lips and teasing what was inside. She let her hand slide down her body, imaging it was him touching and loving her. Her hand touched herself and she found her clit. She slowly circled her way around it keeping her eyes closed. The sound of the water rushing out overhead muffled her soft moan as her fingers continued to send pins and prickles of pleasure through her. She could feel Alex pressing into her touching her where she was touching herself now. She imagined their fingers intertwined, his lips on the back of her neck, his tongue hot against her wet skin. Her body started to move as she imagined their hands moving over her vaginal lips and rubbing across her clit. The tension built up inside her and she came, her face up against the wall of the shower with her eyes closed, breathing hard. She stood like that for a minute before she realized where she was and she opened her eyes.
Jen looked around her and grim reality closed in and she turned the shower off. She dried herself off and walked back into her bedroom, deciding that she didn’t want to go out and face the world today. She crawled back into bed without anything on her body and covered herself up. She laid on her stomach and put her face in the pillow and closed her eyes.
Jen didn’t know how long she had been sleeping but something was happening she just wasn’t sure what. She opened her eyes and saw that she was still in her room but it looked different. There was a glow about it making everything look softer. She was alarmed and sat up in bed forgetting she was naked. The blanket fell to her waste and she sat there with her breasts in plain view but she didn’t notice. There standing at the edge of the bed was Alex looking handsome as ever.