She could handle the day. It wasn’t hard then, to keep her heart from surfacing, her feelings hidden beneath stonewalls. She could almost forget about it, all of it, and sink into an alternate universe, where he had never been hired as the captain’s pilot, where she had never met him. It was easy then, to go about her duties and forget about the emptiness inside her. No, she could handle the days. It was the nights she couldn’t bear.

It was laying in that bed they shared once upon a time, under those sheets where he’d kept her warm, kept her happy. And now she could only lie there, mentally reliving their short time together, cold and alone in the dark.

She couldn’t think about him in the day, when her old get-the-mission-done army self came back, telling her to just get through it, just get it done. One job after another, doing her best to forget but always remembering.

It was the gentle tug at her heart; the empty chair at the table; the box of dejected dinosaur figures in the corner; the quiet, dark bedroom she now had to herself. It was a loneliness she had never experienced, and looking back it was hard to believe she’d taken their brief time together for granted.

Getting through life was her mission now, taking things as they came and moving on. To where, she wasn’t quite sure, but new a small sliver of hope guided her. It was the hope of the small life she felt growing inside her, the one thing of his she had left.

But she would just keep lying there in a constant darkness, a constant dread, anxious for the day she would finally join him in death. Anxious for the day he’d make her laugh again, or cuddle her, or play with his ruddy childish toys. The day he’d kiss her like he used to, right under her ear. The day she’d be happy again.

And for now she just had to shoulder the pain and take it one night at a time, crying herself to sleep but never showing the pain that slowly tore at her soul.