Hi, gorgeous.

It was two months ago today I lost you. Two months ago I said good night, I love you, that I'd see you in the morning and how excited I was for our vacation before peak season. I can still see it. I can still play it like a video in my mind.

We managed to find a decent amount of things to remember you by while the remains of the house were being taken down. We found your jewelry case you would carry to LARP with some of your crafted pieces. I found the yellow dress you would wear on date nights sometimes (yellow always looked good on you, gorgeous, and I've spent more than a few minutes just hugging that empty dress wishing you were still here). There was a box we found with your high school diploma, graduation cap, and a few other things as well as your sophomore yearbook nearby (the pages were frozen together, but it dried out enough to be able to open it to your picture). I caught a glimpse of your red scalemail chest piece as it was falling into the dumpster and we managed to find it and save it (I have no idea how I'm going to clean it, but I'll figure it out). I found the models of Dossis and Felice. I'm glad for what we were able to salvage, but none of it changes what I really want: you.

This has been the longest two months of my life. I have an apartment lined up. I've picked out a new mattress. I've found some furniture I like. I'm making decent progress on moving forward with my life and being an independent adult again. I hate all of it. I hate that I'm moving forward without you. I don't want any of this, gorgeous. I want our life back. I don't want a life without you in it.

What was once our home is a vacant lot now. They've even swept up the last of the ash, soot, and remnants from the foundation. It's just an empty hole in a row of townhouses. I stood where your desk was in the basement before we left for the last time, and I could see it all in my mind like it was still real: Morgan lying in the hammock next to your desk, Merlin on the longer couch between our desks, and you sitting at your computer in your corgi onesie. I just want to go back to that.

I can't stand the idea of living a long life now. I wish I was dead at least two or three times a day still. I keep wishing I had been with you that night so you wouldn't have been alone. I don't think you would have wanted any of this to be true, but I can't help it. I don't want to be here without you, Madelaine. I don't want to keep living without you. I just feel lost.

I miss you. I love you. You're my forever, Madelaine.