"I Can't Stop Loving You," Ch. 03

'God, I hope he's not dead,' she thought to herself. 'Maybe he had a doctor or dentist appointment. Maybe he wasn't feeling well and decided to remain in bed,' she thought while worried about him as if she was already in a relationship with him.

Maybe dying of a broken heart when Mary died, and with him just going through the motions of living, she wondered if he had died on Valentine's Day too. Only, it wasn't Valentine's Day. It wasn't even close to being Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day was months ago and months away. Yet, topping her Romeo and Juliet story, how romantic is that to die on Valentine's Day in the way that Mary died on Valentine's Day? Maybe with Mary the only woman he ever loved and with the death of her, he was done with women, with sex, and with love.

Nonetheless how she imagined he felt about woman, about sex, and about love, she wondered who he was, what he did for a living, if he was retired, where he lived, and if he had children. With him abruptly leaving her without her even knowing his name, she wondered if he'd be there at the cemetery tomorrow. She wondered what his name was. She imagined his name being Robert, Michael, Steven, or James. She imagined his name being Charles, Anthony, David, or George. She wondered if he'd return to the cemetery tomorrow or the next day. Maybe he'd be there later this afternoon. She'd have to swing back later to see if he was there.

Yet, with her only seeing him at his wife's grave alone, at least she assumed it was his wife, perhaps he didn't have any children or even have a wife. In the way she thought about him before, perhaps he was a gay man who lost his longtime lover, partner, and best friend in life to death. With her not having any children of her own, she knew how awful it was to begin this life and leave this life alone and without having anyone to mourn her after she was gone. Suddenly, she felt so empty. Suddenly, she felt so abandoned. She felt so alone and lonely.

With William and Patrick both dead and with her no longer talking to her mother and/or her four, much older brothers, only God knows where they all were. All she knew was that she was alone. More than just being alone and lonely, she dreaded the possibility of dying alone without anyone knowing she was dead and/or that she even existed. She dreaded being just another unidentified Jane Doe wearing a toe tag at the morgue. She dreaded the possibility of dying alone and without anyone shedding a tear or a care that she was dying and that she was dead. How awful not to have a friend in the world? How awful not to have a Daddy?

With her mother a whore, a prostitute, and a stripper who never cared or loved her, an accident of birth by one of her mother's Johns, she never knew her real father. With her brothers sexually intimate with her mother before she was even born, one of her brothers could be her father for all she knew. Then, later, with her four brothers sexually abusing her, raping her, and treating her as if her sexual abuse was her fault and she was the whore, they had nothing to do with her.

With her mother and four brothers obviously feeling guilty about how they treated her, it was better to just ostracize her from the family. It was better to forget about her as if she was never born and never existed. How awful not to be loved by anyone? Obviously, her four, drunken brothers didn't want their wives and daughters to know that they all gangbang raped her. They never treated her as if she were their little sister. They more treated her as if she was just another whore. Suddenly, without having anyone in her life, she was alone with her bad self again.

* * * * *

Even though those love songs sometimes made her feel sad, those stupid love songs made her feel alive. Even though those love songs sometimes made her feel sad, those stupid love songs were the only things that helped her by making her feel connected to someone, even if that someone was dead. They jogged her memories and inspired her thoughts of William and Patrick. Even though she felt sad when thinking about them, she felt alive when remembering them. Every time she thought of them, she prayed for them.

She had a life once, a good life, when William and Patrick were part of her life. Without hearing those love songs playing over and again, there was nothing but death, dead people, headstones, tombstones, and gravesites. Without love, just a blurb in the obituaries, no one would care that she died. Without having loved someone and someone having loved her, she may as well be dead. If only through those love songs, she was glad that death was interrupted by love.

With love so much part of life, love was so much part of death too. Everywhere she looked were dead people. All of these deceased and decomposing bodies were so much more than just names and birth and death dates. They were real people. Someone loved them. Yet, here she is still alive and it's so sadly funny how she seemingly felt more comfortable with the dead than she did with the living. Without hearing those love songs playing over and again in her head, now she felt just as dead as those who were buried in the cemetery.

Seemingly with him not paying attention to her in the way that she paid attention to him, obviously, he didn't even know that she was listening to and was addicted to hearing those nine, love songs. Sometimes when feeling so lonely and sad, hoping that her mystery man was there visiting Mary, she drove to the cemetery not to visit with William but to pretend she was visiting with Patrick to hear his love songs from afar. With Patrick's grave closer to Mary's grave than William's grave, she used Patrick as her excuse to be there.

Now, with him not paying any attention to her, she felt as ridiculous as she felt pathetic. Obviously, he wasn't interested in her in the way that she was interested in him. Obviously he was still mourning the loss of his precious Mary. Obviously, there was no room in his life for another woman, especially with Mary passing around the same time that Patrick had died.

Then, one day, he wasn't there again. So unusual not to see him there, it was odd not to see him there standing guard over Mary's tomb while playing those nine love songs. It was so eerily odd not to hear any music playing while she visited Patrick at the cemetery on the pretense of hoping to see him again. Yet, even when she wasn't there to hear them and even when he wasn't there to play them, as if he was haunting the cemetery, she heard his love songs playing over and again in her head. Now with her sitting in front of Patrick's headstone while hoping he'd arrive, when he didn't, she felt ridiculously pathetic again.

What was she doing? She felt so lost. She felt so lonely. As if she had just lost another man in her life, a man she never had the pleasure of even meeting, she felt so sad.

Suddenly, as if there was an angel coming up behind her, the air around her changed. She felt the aura and the presence of something or someone. She could feel the stare of someone or something coming up behind her. Suddenly, she was as afraid as she was excited to know that she wasn't alone. Suddenly, as if there was an animal walking through the grass, a squirrel, a cat, or a dog, she heard a shuffling movement behind her.

To be continued...

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