He's gone. Just like that. I just spoke to him not a week ago. I was only gone for three days. Three days...a moment. He stood at the gates of Minas Tirith as I was leaving. He warned me about the approaching clouds as if I hadn't noticed them myself. He harassed me about avoiding mud puddles with such care. He wished me a safe trip. He told me to hurry back...that he'd missed me...that we had so much to discuss since my last visit. Just three days.
Three days. And now I stand here, looking at him...but not. Looking at his likeness carved in stone. How could so much happen in just three days? One moment of imperfection...and everything is lost. I haven't the faintest idea what to do. How to cope. This is ever so much worse than when we'd thought Gandalf had died in Moria...or when we thought Merry and Pippin slain by the Rohirrim.
I stand here and stare. People pass. People whisper. I barely notice. Things are blurry now. I'm crying again. I haven't wept since I was a child. No matter how hard I try not to...the tears don't stop. They should. I don't cry. I don't!
Maybe I'm being selfish, standing here, lost in thought, while others need comfort. Arwen. However I try...I can't make myself go to her. She comes here often enough, swathed in black, to stand and mourn. No words pass between us. Perhaps she doesn't even know I'm here. Maybe it's better that way. It makes things all the worse to know that, truthfully, I feel little for her.
I'm jealous of her. I'm jealous of everyone who was closer to him than I was. Perhaps that's foolish. Perhaps I don't realize that I was just as close as anyone else...but it doesn't feel that way. I feel as if I'm standing just barely on the inside of a group that he held dear. And it's wrong of me to think that...because part of me knows it's not true.
And I'm jealous of her because she had what I couldn't. She had him. Most of all she had his love. I don't fool myself by thinking that I could have had it instead. I know that would have never happened. I never told him how I felt. I would have never wanted to put on him the burden of my love for him. Though...now that the chance has passed, I wish I would have let him know just how much he meant to me. Maybe he knew. Sometimes I thought he did...the way he'd look at me. I'll never be sure. Not now.
At the moment, I can barely recall a pleasant memory that includes him. There are many, I know, but they elude me. Nothing 'happy' lives in my mind now. I want to think of things like that...I need to...but they won't come.
Never again will I see him or hear his voice or feel even the slightest touch. And though in my memory he will live on eternally...it isn't the same. It isn't enough. All that's left is his monument. It is what I came back to...and it is all I'll have from now on.
There will never be another like him. I would be offended if someone were to try...I think. There will be no one who understands me as well as he did. No one who I will be able to speak as freely with. No one who I can truly be myself with...without fear of judgement. No one. The loss...the emptiness...is nearly tangible. Painful...in such a way I haven't felt before. I don't know what to do.
I should go. I can't stay here. I can't look at 'him' anymore. I can't. But I don't move. I stay where I am...as I have for the past three days. Arwen comes and goes. I hadn't noticed until now that she's left things here beside me. Things that were his. And I cry again. But I don't understand why...and I can't make it stop.
So I stand there and stare at the neat little pile of what remains of Estel...and I sob. And I don't know when I'll stop...and I find that I don't care if I ever do. And if he's watching me, if he can hear what I'm thinking: I'm sorry...and I love you.
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Three Days by Loi
Story notes: Dedicated to Steve (1980-2003). With love to you, my ranger, from your elf.
