The room was empty to me, yet filled by you. You walk by me, your finger cold against the back of my hand. I look for you, you're not here. I'm only here because you told me to be here. I'm only here because I can't be anywhere else. Your part of me is tethered here. I was very still, people were continuing to talk very softly, over the dull piano music that fills the air. The room smells cold, a dead cold. That's right, dead cold. Just like you.
  God, it hurts. I can feel you here. Like you're right here. Like I can touch you. Chills send down my hips and I press my hands to suppress the familiar ache.
  I step forward, heading down the stairs. No one seems to notice me, yet everyone is so enthralled by your lack of presence. Even in death you know how to hold a room's attention. You did that a lot. We would walk into restaurants and you were dressed in a bright purple suit you got in Paris. “When in France!” you would say, smile and parade me through the restaurant. I would grab your hand and laugh, throw my head back and watch as all the stuffy older people enjoyed the sight of two young people in love.
  I feel a cold finger against my hand again and jerk away, right into a kid with your eyes. The drinks in his hand go flying all over my dress and the dresses of patrons. I wipe the look of surprise off my face and kneel down to pick up the glass. It’s okay, you whisper, right into my ear. I fall backwards, snapping back to see you. Once again, you’re not there.
“Julianne, it’s lovely to see you.” greets me instead. Your mother. She’s beautiful, as usual. Dressed in all black with bright red earrings. Her eyes glance me up- down- and she sighs. “Do you need help?” I shake my head. Grabbing the final pieces of glass off the ground, I straighten my hair, readjust my dress and get myself back up on my feet.
Your mother doesn't like me. She thinks your death is entirely my fault, which is an all right thing to assume, I mean the evidence doesn’t exactly swing in my favor. I came home and you were gone. I went upstairs and you were jumping. I’m starting to believe the people that say I was responsible. It only makes sense, you were so charismatic and all, people assumed that I was jealous of you, that you wanted someone else and I killed you out of rage. That there was so much fire in me that I had to shove you off our building’s rooftop. That the best time of your life had to come to an end because I was jealous. Because you didn’t love me, because you loved someone else.
That’s not the truth at all. We were in love, right? A hand touches mine to confirm it. Finally, the church bell hollars that the church is ready, all the beautiful souls that remember you kindly wander in, some of them are blotting away tears, others are flat out crying. Your mother put together a funeral that was just like you in life. Bright but so dark at the same time. Candles flicker along the church walls, flowers line the rows of pews. I settle in the front, behind the family. I was the only one in my row, the massive crowd of people climb into their seats and organize themselves. I can hear the slight whisper, “Where did you know Adrian from?” a woman in black and a yellow hat sits a few rows behind me. She is facing a younger, less elegantly dressed woman. “Oh, I met him in France.”
“In France? Adrian went to France?”
“Yes, we were very friendly. He was always very respectable.”
Yeah, he was. I nod in confirmation and settle against the pew, preparing for a long service. They didn’t ask me to speak, which I thought was funny, since I knew him better than most of these folks for the last few years of his life. No one here really knew him, no one here saw him at his lowest point, which was only a few months ago. Adrian came back from a visit to France and he was broken. He had been studying frequently there and his parents finally cut him off from the visits to France and we had no money. So there was no way for him to keep going back to France. We talked for a long time, back and forth until we came to the conclusion we would move to France for him to study and I would go to pursue my love for making food. It would be mutually beneficial for both of us. We stacked up our pennies and every pay check we would take a few dollars and throw it into a little jar on the kitchen table. Adrian would spend his days drawing or painting, looking for off the wall jobs to make some money for us both. I was working a lot then, in fact, the entire month before Adrian died, I was working excessively. I was barely ever home and when I was home, I was taking care of my very basic necessities. We were struggling to get through the weeks, the months of needing to pay bills I barely recognized.
Every night was the same, the same smile, laugh and reminding “I love you”s. We established a routine and ran ourselves into a trench with it. He would stay home, I would go to work. It was constant and I could always rely on it. I could always rely on the love of my life sitting at his computer with takeout on the table. A smile on his face, even though we were utterly poor and he was utterly unemployed. We would sit over our crappy orange chicken and laugh about stupid things that my coworkers did that day. Then we would find a movie, cuddle on our torn couch that he refuses to get rid of and fall asleep.
When I opened my eyes, the church was empty. I was sitting very still. I felt a hand on my shoulder and eventually it moved to my back, attempting to comfort me in my time of need.
“I just- I just want him back. That’s all I want. Really, it’s all I want.” Beginning to cry, I covered my eyes and bawled. I bawled and coughed and sniffled, all without realizing exactly who was touching my back.
“It’s okay, Julianne, it’s okay.” he whispered. An apparition of my beautiful dead boyfriend sat very close to me. I could feel his warmth, I could smell his always minty fresh breath and the cologne that I bought him three years ago. His hand rested on the skin of my arm and he wrapped his fingers around my arm. A smile on his face. “It’s good to see you.”
“Oh Adrian!” I whimpered and slammed my head into his shoulder. I slipped right through him and slapped myself into the seat of the chair. I sat back up, he moved his hand onto my face. His hand was warm and I closed my eyes, leaning into his touch. He wiped away my tears.
“Why’d you have to go Adrian?”
He didn’t answer.
“Adrian? Why’d you have to go?”
Still no answer, just the quiet touch on my cheek.
“Please just tell me, Adrian. It’s breaking my heart.”
He looked sad now. Very sad. He removed his hand and gave me a kiss on the forehead. He whispered, “I’m just sorry, okay? I don’t know why, I just did.”
He slipped away from me, fading into nothing.