He was drinking and driving. Something we always fought about. “I’m not too drunk to drive,” he always told me. I responded, “A little is enough to get you distracted.”

His drinking habit was the only thing we fought about. He was a gentleman. A full package that was delivered to my door when I wasn’t expecting it. Two years after dating he said he wanted to marry me. In fact, one year after dating we nearly got married but something happened to put our plans in disarray.

For two years we didn’t have sex, the only man who accepted this arrangement without fighting me. He made it look easy. He made it look like he was chosen to be by my side until the end of time.

After the knocking rite, we picked a date. It was tentative but a date anyway. One night I went to knock on his door and told him I was ready. “Are we married now?” He asked. “I feel like we’ve been married for over two years,” I whispered.

He took me into his bed, touched my heart and sealed my lips with a kiss. When I moaned in pain, he whispered, “It gets easy, stay calm.” He was gentle with me. It felt like my first time and yet my thousandth time with him.

He was drinking and driving in the night when he lost control. According to an eyewitness, he was swerving a huge truck in his lane when he lost control. They had to cut his car into pieces to bring him out of the wreckage. He didn’t say a word, not even a farewell to the one he loved.

They didn’t have a body to put on display. His pieces were placed in the casket and was buried. I was too terrified I didn’t go near his remains. I didn’t want to remember him as pieces. He was a whole man, my whole man. I haven’t moved on. They tell me to try and forget but I don’t want to.

Why will I have to do that? Forget him as if he didn’t ever live? Push him in the archives and move on as if he didn’t impact my life in any way? I prefer it doesn’t hurt when I remember him. But his memory, I won’t shelf it and move on. I’d rather let it bounce on the wall and fall back in my hand. Everyday

—Cee

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