The Returned

I hadn’t had nearly enough time with her. Hadn’t been given the chance to show her all that I wanted to. How could life be so damn unfair? I felt the pain of loss again just as strong as at the first.

I shook my head to escape from my reverie as I felt myself being sucked back into the dark places that I’d fought so hard to leave behind. I was suddenly tired to my soul.

I looked towards the door that lead into the house and prepared myself to enter the way I always have to whenever I remember her like this.

Everything was still the same as it had been the day she left. I hadn’t changed a thing. I was afraid that if I did she’d disappear here too. That her essence would be gone. My beautiful wife, my babygirl, my sweetheart!

I felt the threat of tears and battled them back. Tears hadn’t brought her back before they won’t now. But it was hard to keep them from escaping all the same.

I’d long got over dealing with this heartache each time I came home, but for whatever reason it was back now and just as strong as ever. I didn’t push the feelings away, didn’t shy away from them. I guess my mind really is punishing me for even thinking of moving on.

I dragged myself out of the Rover still a little worn but nothing like the night I’d ended up sick in the hospital. This time it was my mind that plagued me more than anything else.

But why now, why had the memories that I had fought so hard to suppress in order to survive suddenly made a comeback? And why the hell do I feel like she’s here with me?

I’d felt it in the hospital when I was out. In my dreams she was there. I could feel her presence so strongly only to wake up to find that it was just a dream. Now I feel her again and I’m wide-awake.

I had that same sense of excitement in my gut that I used to get when she was here, whenever I was about to walk through the door and see her after a long day of being apart.

We used to have this weird awareness of each other her and I. One of us could always find the other in a crowd. Which is why it had been so difficult to accept her disappearance.

She’d had a tendency to get lost every time she’d drag me off shopping, but I always found her without too much hassle.

I’d always feel her presence whenever she entered the house after being out somewhere, and know when she wasn’t here when I came home some evenings and she was off doing something.

I’d know when she was getting sick or when she was sad about something; usually something to do with a child in need or some other thing she’d found that was her next great cause.

Our connection was that strong back then. But it hadn’t been strong enough to save her. And in all these years it hadn’t been able to help me find her.

But yet it was the one thing that gave me hope that she was still alive. Somehow I knew that if she wasn’t, this feeling of knowing would’ve dimmed with time.

I know in my bones that if my woman was no longer of this world I would know. For that reason I can never give up the hope of one day finding her and bringing her home where she belong.

Cade

I walked into the house and immediately knew that something was wrong. It was just a feeling but I’d learned a long time ago to trust my gut. There was a presence here, or someone had been here in the last few days.

Mom and dad hadn’t been to the house. Mom had brought my old college sweats from their house for me to wear home from the hospital.

No one else had a key, but I was sure that someone had been here; I could feel it. I walked cautiously inside without turning on any lights. I felt my way as I went, moving slowly so as not to make a sound.

I let my senses guide me now. Was the intruder still here, and if so, where are they? A quick look around didn’t show anything out of place and there was no one there. Still that feeling persisted.

My heart picked up speed and I opened my senses. I had to fight the feeling of Zandi to concentrate on the here and now. Later I’ll get back to thoughts of my woman, but right now I need to deal with this danger.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, there was something up there. Something or someone! I didn’t feel fear, just determination as I made my way slowly across the room.