Who: Ash Donovan What: Celebrating his birthday and a switch in the mind. Where: Neil's place at the Aria When: Today Warnings/Rating: Grief
April had a tendency to be difficult. For so many, it was a time of new beginnings, but for Ashleigh, it was a reminder of everything that she had lost. April 22nd. Matthew would have been twenty six years old and they would have been celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary the coming June. Instead, Ashleigh was celebrating both alone as she had done the previous year, as she would continue to do in the years that followed. Normally, she visited his grave, refreshed the flowers, and sat and spent time with him for several hours, hand pressed to the grass. It was as close as she could get to him now, and she pretended that it was enough, but really, it wasn’t. It never was. And this year she was even further away, an ocean separating them, hundreds of miles of distance gaping between them. So she celebrated in her own way.
The cake was lemon with a vanilla frosting, his favourite. The recipe was something she had memorized long ago, could make without even thinking of it, and before long, the kitchen was filled with the smell of sweet lemons and warm vanilla, the cake left to sit on the counter as she sat and stared at it. One hand tangled in the chain around her neck, fingering the rings that rested there, her wedding ring and his wedding band. “Happy birthday, love,” she murmured thickly, dropping her head down against one arm, thumb rubbing over his wedding band, over and over again. There were no tears, but the grief and loss she felt had long since gone beyond tears; it was soul deep, a scar on her person, and no matter how hard she pushed past it, it was always there, waiting for her. “I miss you so much, Matthew. You’ve no idea how much I wish I could see you again, just one last time.” Her chest was tight and Ash found it hard to swallow past the lump that had risen in her throat. Sighing, she reached out, jabbed a finger in the fluffy white frosting and pulled it back to lick the sweet stuff from her fingertip.
It tasted like love.
Later on, as she was washing up, putting Neil’s kitchen back to rights, Ash realised that something in her had shifted. It was hard to put her finger on it, hard to define precisely what had happened. But the blond thing with the spunk and spark was gone, something closer to her settling in its the place it had vacated. Just another person to grieve, she thought as she wiped her hands clean and saw herself up to the guest room she had claimed as her own - temporary. She kept telling herself it wasn’t forever.
The cake was left on the counter, frosting smoothed out from where she had poked at it. She didn’t have the stomach for a slice. She never did.