Room 143

Chapter 1: Prologue

Nash

wid·ow·er

/ˈwidō(ə)r/

Noun

A man who has lost his spouse by death and has not remarried.

Widower.

I twirl my platinum wedding band around my ring finger. It’s tight now, slightly getting caught on the knuckle, not moving as easily as it once did. It’s sat in the same spot since the day I got married. It’s stayed through eight years of marriage (three with her, five without her), three epic, knock-down drag-out fights, and one horrific automobile accident that killed my wife and our unborn child. It was there the day of her funeral, three hundred and sixty-five days later when I finally got up the courage to take apart the nursery, and right now, one thousand ninety-five days later as I sit on my couch wondering what the f*ck I’m doing with my life.

Most everyone says I should be moving on. I’m young and I don’t have to stay alone forever. There are plenty of women who would be happy to help me get back in the saddle, so to speak. Women throw themselves at me every day. Where I work, where I eat, where I run my three miles a day and do my pull-ups at the local park. Opportunities and free p*ssy are literally everywhere and being handed to me on a silver platter.

What everyone doesn’t know, is I’ve tried. More than once, I’ve done my best to put the memories I have behind me, to try and build new ones with someone else. F*ck, I’ve even gone so far as to get drunk and have a one-night stand. Truth of the matter is I still feel like I’m married, still look for her in crowds, and sometimes when I come home at night, I even yell her name. For a few moments I actually wait to see if I can hear her.

She’d be singing in that horrible tone-deaf voice of hers. Or she’d be trying to wrangle our big boxer into taking a bath before he climbed into our bed that night. The way he’d work his way in between us - me b*tching, her giggling - plays over and over again like a highlight reel of someone else’s life. Only it’s not.

It was my perfect life. Before it all got dumped in the sh*tter thanks to one dumb*ss who couldn’t wait at a red light.

The only thing left of those times are me, the dog, and the memories.

Tilting my head back against the leather of the couch, my vision blurs as I try to swallow past the lump in my throat. Bailey, the crazy boxer comes over, whining before hopping up onto the couch and putting her head on my thigh.

She knows.

About the emptiness, the regret, and the goddamn pain.

“Yeah girl, I miss her too,” I push out the words, my bottom lip trembling. “I miss everything about our lives back then.”

Tears come at weird times, as do the waves of grief, the f*cking gut-wrenching anguish. Nobody prepared me for those. I’ve always been told, time heals all wounds, Nash. The f*ck it does. I’m still here, hurting like I’ve been hurting for the past five years with no end in sight.