A/N - This set of short stories is close to an end, it seems. I promise the few who read this that the next part will explain exactly what all this nonsense has been about! I dually hope you have enjoyed it so far.
Word:Picture
059 : 05 Blue
She had held it with the tips of her fingers, as if she had been disgusted by the sight of him. She had not been disgusted; rather, she had been haunted. That face, she had known every curve, every line, every flaw of his face.
It didn't matter anymore. Nothing she had known about him mattered anymore. Not her knowledge of the way he had dipped his chin into the hollow of his neck whenever he was embarrassed, and that even then, only the very tips of his ears had turned powder pink. The way he had tapped his foot along to his favourite Beatles song, while he had belted it out at the top of his voice, even though he had known he couldn't sing for the life of him.
Nobody cared that she known all his quirks, all his childhood stories off by heart. She hadn't been sure that even she cared. She had felt bitterness niggling in the pit off her stomach, bitter at everyone for moving on as if nothing had happened, and at the world for taking him away. She had no way of moving on, had never lost anyone before. She had no defence mechanism against the straining feel of bereavement.
His eyes watched her from out of the sticky polaroid, happy and shining from the flash. It had been his birthday, when she took the picture. They had stayed at home, wrapped up in each other, shutting the whole world out.
He had been wearing the ghastly blue jumper that had been covered in holes that she had hated. It had still smelt of him. A mixture of apples and coffee. She hadn't thrown it away, even with him gone. She had begun to sleep with it, pressing it against her face so she could pretend he was still next to her. The bed had been too big for one person.
He had been laughing, at something she had said or done, she hadn't been able to remember. No matter how desperately she had tried to cling on to her old memories, they had been slowly creeping away from her, a distant blur of motion and sound.
She had brought it closer to herself so she had been able to inspect it. Her eyes had followed the line of his cheekbones across to his prominent nose, broken from when he had been a child. He had begun to get crows feet, laughter lines quite distinctive. Not that he had ever cared that much about what he had looked like. She had recalled that he hadn't cared what she had ever looked like. Even upon waking from late nights out, he had told her she was beautiful, had kissed the end of her nose before he had got up to get ready for a new day together.
She had weighed the lighter in her other hand, had thought about it for a long time. She had rolled back the metal, and a flame had clicked into life. She had stared at it for a few moments, watching it dance - and then she released the switch, the flame dying instantaneously. She had not been able to do it, to destroy the few things she had left to remind herself of his love. She had not been ready. She had doubted she ever would be, that she would ever have been able to move on.
