Nights are the worst.

During the day there is something to occupy my mind. I know I have to have the store open, fill the shelves, talk to customers, although I just go through the motions and none of it brings me the joy it once did.

When I walk in the door at night, my mind exhausted from putting up a front all day, my footsteps echo through the house. I make myself dinner, more for the reason I know food is necessary than because I am hungry and then settle in front of the TV for an evening of mindless entertainment.

I drag myself off to bed, knowing sleep will escape me again for most of the night, but when it does finally take over, it only lasts for a few hours and I find myself waking with a start, drenched in sweat. The dreams are so real, so vivid, I expect him to be lying next to me when I turn over. But of course he isn’t and never will again.

Hunter is coming over tomorrow and we are going to sort through his things. I have put it off for long enough and have steeled myself for it. There are some things I will never part with, the leather jacket he was wearing the first time I saw him, a red shirt that fitted his body to perfection. Everything else we will box up and give to charity. I know it’s what he would have wanted.

I wonder if this feeling of complete and utter despondency will ever leave me. If my nights will ever be dream free, if a day will pass when a memory floods my mind and I have to blink back tears.

They say time heals all but I wonder if they ever had what I did, ever knew what it was to be loved like I was. Somehow I don’t think they did otherwise they would know that time was only there to fill in the days and years until I would be with him again.