***Aldrik***
Fifty-three days.
I'd counted every single one.
Fifty-three days since I'd watched Cassius die in my arms, since I'd felt his last breath against my skin, since I'd heard those final words that echoed in my mind constantly.
"I hate you."
The room around me was dark, curtains drawn against the daylight I couldn't bear to see. Our room. The room Cassius and I had shared as husband and husband, though I'd barely spent time here when he was alive, too busy with my lover, too consumed with my own selfishness to appreciate what I had.
Now it was all I had left of him.
I sat in the chair by the window, the same chair I'd sat in for fifty-three days straight. Cassius's clothes still hung in the wardrobe, his books still sat on the nightstand, a ribbon marking the page he'd never finish reading, his scent still clung faintly to the sheets I refused to let anyone wash.
Every piece of him I could hold onto, I kept.
