The rain never let up. So, I stayed inside, warm on the sofa wrapped in a flannel blanket with a cup of chamomile tea, listening to jazz records and I stared out the window. And it kept raining and drizzling and I kept watching.

And thinking.

How could I have not seen him? I guess when you create a little world around yourself, you lose sight of the world around you. It’s like trying to see through fog. You might as well be mute. You become so absorbed in your own grief and sadness and blinding loneliness, that you just…forget.

You start to not recognize the face in the mirror. You put your shoes on the wrong feet. You don’t even notice that your cat ran away months ago but you still keep putting food in his dish.

I knew what happened, what made me this way…but thinking about it, it just sends pain into my chest and I can’t breathe, thinking of those last words on that cold day before I lost it…

They’re gone, Charlotte. Dead. Your parents, your brother…Allen too…dead. Gone…