I am brand new now without you
Everything I can do now without you
I was right all along now the pain feels like it's gone
I am brand new now without you
Everything I can do now without you
Now without you
Now without you
(13/50. That's this year, the number of trips around the sun without you, and the age you would have been had you stepped back down instead of off.
13 fucking fifty, Pooh.)
That's what fall means, swirling in and around the velvet and crunchy leaves, the rattle of acorns kicked across the front-porch boards as the ghost stares expressionless through the glass. I didn't give him an emotion today. Today he is a placeholder, a large obstacle, a statute out there in the lush green grass, something I'm going to run into at full speed any minute now, bouncing off his cold marble skin and falling into the wet leaves, stunned to silence, again.
My brain's been bumping up against him all week already. I tried to distract myself with Cole but let's face it, Trey was never any match for the mighty Preacher, not even close. I keep making contact with him, my hands outstretched in pitch black and I recoil in surprise and try a different way but there he is again, the soft worn cotton of his best pale blue Denver Hayes button-down so familiar against my fingers.
As long he doesn't say anything I'll be fi-
Hullo, Princess.
And I freeze in place, ice crystals on my eyelashes, blood turned to slush in my veins. My heart thuds painfully against its alabaster cage once or twice before shattering in the cold again, flooding the inside of my body with still-warm viscous misery as I go crashing to the ground.