Elegance with Expense

54. White Roses

The bouquet of white roses in my hand, they weren't real, but they were his favourite flowers. 

I stood over the freshly placed gravestone, holding back my emotions, holding my breath until I felt raw numbness. I didn't allow the tears in my eyes to spew over. He didn't want me to cry by his stone.

I was alone in the yard, the same yard my mother was buried in. I wasn't here to see her today.

Looking down at the calmed roses in my hand, I felt hopeless, I felt guilt. Such a spontaneous decision, his life for mine. 

How selfish of me!

I was struck in the heart, even in London, the place I felt the most content, it would never be the same. His studio, the shutters were down... they were never down. The streetlamps outside the building were off, they were always on, even in daylight.

I didn't hear the familiar street packed with it's regular buzz, such insanity I was experiencing.

Romano's café was closed, even the speakeasy was closed. It's like the entire cabined street had gone into lockdown, as though a horrifying disease had escaped the minute Wally left us.

He was always a few inches shorter than me, I always looked down to meet his happy self. I didn't think I would be looking down at him in this way. 

The fresh soil around his stone had risen slightly, I could almost see the outline of his constant dishevelled hair in the thin grass strands surrounding the area. Don't cry he asked, such unfamiliarity for me to want to cry when I have been asked not to.

Still only the second week of the New Year, and I was already standing above a gravestone. His life for mine, it was a dreadful thought, one I bought onto myself. It never had to be like this.

Receiving the news was always the hard part, not for me. Having to deal with the aftermath was challenging, especially when it was my fault. A reaction came from me when Vince sat me down in an office in Italy, not the one he was fully expecting. 

I returned from hospital the minute I was cleared, the thought of Wally was always in the back of my mind, but the memory of what happened was so faint, that all I remembered was his final few words and our last lesson together. The memory was etched into my mind for a reason, I needed the happy final moment. 

It was as though Vince knew that I knew when he professionally broke the news to me. If he was expecting me to break down and cry, or search for comfort within him he was mistaken. A reaction like that would have come from me, if I hadn't suspected it beforehand. 

But the minute I ran from his office, I broke down into dust. My hands grasped my face as I gasped for air, my throat was screaming as I cried and cried. The tears came, hot and endless, for pain entering my world without the decency to knock first.

I cried as if my brain was being shredded from the inside. Emotional pain flowed out of my every pore. 

From my mouth came a cry so raw that even the eyes of the strangers around me would have been suddenly wet with tears. 

I grabbed onto a chair so that my violent shaking would not cause me to fall, and from my eyes came a thicker flow of tears than I had cried for even my own mother the previous years.

I always knew that grief was a difficult thing to deal with, but never had I lost someone so dear to my heart. It was the same as loosing a family member, one that actually cared for you.

It was more than crying, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained of all hope. 

I remember crumbling to my knees that day, not caring to tidy my tear stained face when Armani came through the bedroom door. It was warm in Italy that day, not in all aspects however.