“The grief. It came crashing in like a tidal wave. The very thought of it still sends a shiver down my spine: makes me wince a little. The weight of it. Those vacant, anguished expressions, and the way we nestled into each other, softly, and the endless cups of too-strong tea that were made by distracted mothers, because sometimes, there is so little else to do. The nights we just clung to each other, licking the salt of our eyes from our lips, and the nights we walked the streets he once did beneath summer skies, stumbling into each other, laughing, because looking back was the only way to survive in the heat of it, and looking forward was.

Just.

Impossible.”