The Coldest Winter

by Brittainy C. Cherry

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope this year brings you more face sittings. That’s my New Year's resolution for you. By all means, I’ll be your first chair.”

“You’re mine tonight,” he swore, his voice low and dripping with want and need. “Now, grab the headboard,” he instructed, positioning me on top of him. “And let me feast.”

That was the thing about grief—it didn’t discriminate. It simply made everyone drown.

“I already miss you, and you’re still here.”

“I missed you before I knew you existed.”

“Being in this library just makes me realize that I want to fuck you in the quietest places and make you scream so fucking loud.”

Yet at the end of the day, our parents were human, too. Their hearts had probably been through a lot more trauma than our own.

“One day, I’m going to love you out loud, and it will be the best day of my life.”

I miss Mom. I miss her so much that it hurts to breathe. And I miss you even more, even though you’re right here in the room with me.

“The memories that seem so small and minuscule. It’s as if you almost forgot they existed until they show up again and knock you backward.”

I didn’t know kisses could taste like goodbyes before he laid his lips against mine.

we come into this life with only one promise—that someday we will leave it. Death is the final act of everyone’s story.

Death is hard on people in different ways. We never know how it will change us until it does.

Say the words I love you as much as you can. You never know when it will be the last time, and I’d rather you drown a person in love than let the moments quietly pass you by.