After She Left

Ghost of Her

"And it's taking over

I call everywhere, oh, I cry out

You are my destroyer

I call everywhere, oh, I cry out"

Of Monsters and Men's "Destroyer"

"Daciana,

I'm not entirely sure why I'm still writing.

Maybe it's because you don't know how much of it is my fault. The reason Ophelia is gone, I blame myself. The first time... Yeah, that was my fault. And there wouldn't have been a second time if there hadn't been the first time.

Is it crazy to say I'm sitting here in my apartment, shaken to my core because it feels like everything is falling apart, hoping that Ophelia's ghost will appear if I write about her? I'm using her journal, tearing pages out like some pagan homage. Or perhaps it sacrilege. I'm not sure. I don't believe in any of that. If I did, maybe it would be easier, you know? Knowing that she is someplace better. But I know that's not the truth. She's gone, gone in every sense of the word.

I don't know if seeing her ghost is good or bad – and again, I know it's all in my head. That's the funny thing about my head, is that I know now what is real and what is fake, and it doesn't make a difference.

I don't really have anyone, so that's why I'm still writing you. Well...

There is a neighbour, a friend, who I want to reach out to again. It feels wrong. With you, it's easy. I'll never see you, writing down my thoughts as they flow out of me is one thing I'm excellent at doing. It's something I have been doing for years. But with her, she's physically here and what if...

What if she helps me move on? What if she helps me forgot the ghost of her?

Bucky."

"Bucky,

Sometimes letting go of the past is the only thing we can do. And that doesn't mean forgetting it, locking it into a jar and hiding it away from the world. As someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, it is no surprise to people when I am hurting, and that's okay.

Having pain, that reminds us that we are real. Physical pain is one thing, yeah, it reminds us we are here. But emotional destruction leaves us wondering why we are here. Why are we expected to suffer so much being taken and taken and taken? It makes us wonder why we bother going on. But then something or someone comes along and we are shown exactly how life is beautiful.

Life is so damn beautiful.

So go live it.

Talk to your neighbour.

If Ophelia loved you, she wouldn't want you bottling up the hurt she left you. That's just a crime to her history. Her impact. Her love.

Or maybe I'm just a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and is a sucker for a happy ending.

Even if we sometimes have to work for it.

Daci."

"Daciana,

She told me to live, but it feels so wrong.

I've talked with my neighbour a half dozen times. We don't talk about Ophelia, she doesn't know about Ophelia. It's like I have to keep these two things separate, split them apart and be two people. Except that I have been two people before, and I can't do it. I'm torn apart, again and again, every night and every day I wake up dripping with sweat because of another nightmare. It's horrifying, the further I stray from Ophelia, the worse it gets.

But it has to get worse before it gets better, right? I have to work for my happy ending, like you said.

But I'm wondering if maybe I worked for it, and ran right past it, and now I'm just stuck here. No happy ending. No ending in sight. Well, one, but I'm not going down that path. I've been there, once before, a while after I lost her. The world was so grey. I didn't have control of my mind in more than one way, I thought there was only one way to escape it all. But a friend helped me through that.

So having friends can help me through whatever I'm in now, right?

I hope so.

Bucky."

Bucky came back to his apartment after therapy, ordered take out because it was easy. The stress that dwindled at therapy – because even he had to admit that it was working – came creeping slowly back in when he was alone in his apartment. He turned on the TV to watch some news on silent with captions, and flopped down on the one chair he had. With a cardboard box full of carbs and dripping with sodium, he forked it in absentmindedly.

They were announcing something big on the TV, his eyes darting towards it. Reaching for the remote, he turned it on sound so he could listen. Some bozo was being granted the title of Captain America. How many months had it been? The world, as ruthless as it had ever been, was moving on already. Eager to give the title to someone else – but no one had proven themselves worthy of that shield. Sam came the closest, and he was the reason it was being handed to this clown.

The panel at the bottom of the screen was showing off his awards from the military, but Bucky knew that systems like that weren't perfect. Not everyone who was filtered through the military was right, or good. None of them were really like Steve. Steve had only been what he was because he had been denied so much in his life. He understood hardship.

Too many people came back from that funnel to be damaged in insurmountable ways.

Bucky knew that too well.

So when he watched the announcement that John Walker was going to be the next Captain America, and people were cheering as though this decision had been years in the making rather than months, Bucky felt something inside of him snap.

And he felt her presence return.

Hauntingly beautiful, she sat there on the kitchen counter. Legs bare in her jean shorts, a loose tank top around her upper half.

"Maybe you should have taken it," she suggested, as if the thought hadn't crossed his mind a million times in the past.

This is getting increasingly harder to write LOL 

I need to watch the show another time to get my head back into it.