Crazy In Love

“You’re crazy, this is a terrible song,” she said as she rolled her eyes at my smile.

“Alexa, skip song!” Lizzie shouted at the speaker.

I rushed her, wrapped my arm around her waist, and attacked the side of her neck with a series of kisses.

“Why do you insist on skipping all the songs I like?”, my tone a mix of playful and feigned seriousness.

She giggled back at me, “It’s not my fault you like trash music.”

The speaker bumped out a deeper house track, and the bass drove our hips to start swinging together. I could feel the glow in the closeness, an invigorating, addicting energy she’s always had.

“See, isn’t this better?”, she playfully emphasized the last word as she pushed her ass back against me in the most enticing way.

I laughed, holding her hips, and we danced there in the kitchen of the home we had purchased earlier this year. “Anything that gets that body moving must mean a better song,” I admitted, pulling her a little closer.

She turned towards me, and kissed me, plunging her soft tongue into my mouth. I fell into the kiss, losing myself in the moment. She had this ability to take me away in the simplest of moments, and this was one of them.

Our kiss deepened, and she let out an irresistible little moan into my mouth. I ran my fingers through her long brown hair, pulling slightly, breaking the kiss and exposing her neck. I kissed the side of her neck, and felt her breath heave against me. She brought her head back to me, kissed the edge of my jaw, and playfully nibbled my skin. I closed my eyes and smiled into the night.

I felt her teeth once more, but she traded playful for devious. My skin pinched between her teeth until Iet out a small yelp and a gasp, pulling my head back. She laughed out, and I stared down at her mischievous grin. I pushed her hips back to the counter, and kissed her again deeply. She let another little moan out into my mouth, and my body drew closer to hers in the most primal of ways. She broke the kiss off, smiling up at me and sliding out from between me and the counter.

I watched her depart the kitchen, and she turned and flashed me the smile that had taught me the power of love, her brunette hair flipping around her head as she disappeared around the corner. I smiled to myself, and just stood in disbelief of the power of this love.

Five years ago, I would have not believed that a love like this was really possible. Perhaps it could exist, but I imagined it was exceedingly rare, and only for those who were intensely emotional people, of which I was not. I rejected most all of the clichés, the talk of soulmates, and love that knew no limit. I imagined most in these states simply pretended, distracting themselves from the coldness of existence.

Then I met Lizzie.

I hesitate to call it love at first sight, but I knew within the first few hours that this was it. I was in a coffee shop, and she had walked up to me and passed me her number. No words, just a smile and that same flip of that hair as she turned away. I texted her that evening, and she proceeded to steal any hope of sleep that night. In a week, we were dating. Six months in we were engaged, and married soon after. A timeline that I would have previously gawked at for being a kind of contrived whirlwind had felt the most natural, equal parts necessary and unnerving.

I exited the kitchen and made my way to the bedroom, assuming that’s where Lizzie had retreated to. The bed was unmade, but no sign of Lizzie. I playfully peaked around the corner of the bathroom, and it too was empty.

“Lizzie”, I called out with the tonality that was somewhere between a child playing hide and seek and the villain from a movie hunting his victim.

I checked the office, and then the den. Checked the spare bedroom.

“Lizzie?” A touch of confusion in my voice, and I did a sweep of the house once more.

Nothing.

I paused and took a quick inventory of the situation. Both the front door and back door were closed and locked. All the same, I checked the driveway, yard, and walkway beside the house. Nothing seemed out of place, but she was not to be found.

I laughed out, and returned to the house. I started to casually engage in the game of hide and seek that I had surely been forced into playing. I called out to her, and I turned my attention to each little corner of the house. My panic subsided into playfulness.

Closets and kitchen cabinets, all empty. Under blankets and beds.

“Lizzie, come out, stop fucking around.” I waited to hear laughter, but none came.

I peeked outside once more, but the night was still, undisturbed.

“Lizzie!” I yelled, some anger in my voice, but got only silence in return.

Puzzled and newly panicked, I considered my options.

My cheek throbbed where she had bit me not long ago.

I picked up my phone and dialed Richard, her brother who lived two streets over.

He answered, his voice coming from the depths of slumber. “Hi Thomas.”

“Hey Rich, sorry to wake you, weird one, is Lizzie over there? I think she’s pranking me, but I can’t find her anywhere.”

My words hung on the line and drowned in the silence.

“Rich?”

He let out a long sigh; “Thomas…”

I felt my heart start to fall through my chest with a harrowing sense of fleeting familiarity.

“Yes?” I didn’t have much else in the way of words.

“Thomas… Lizzie’s dead. There was a car accident.”

I laughed, sickened by this continued attempt at humor, “Rich she was just here. Stop fucking around, how would you even know if there had been an accident this quickly?”

“No, she wasn’t, Thomas. She hasn’t been there in over a year,” he paused. “Look, I have to go back to bed. I’m sorry Thomas. You told me to tell you to check the picture on the fridge when this happens, so..” he paused, “start there. I’m sorry.”

“Rich she bit my-” I explained as the line disconnected.

I put my hand to my face and felt my jaw. If I pushed against it, I winced. It was still sore. It felt as fresh as I’d expect it to. Her bite lingered beneath my skin.

I stood, paralyzed in my kitchen for a few moments. It seemed that this had all gone far past that which could be explained away with humor. With that, I turned my attention to a picture on the fridge.

It was of Lizzie and I, taken a few years ago at a fair. She was laughing into my chest, the neon lights of the fair illuminated far below our position on a questionably constructed Ferris wheel. It was a favorite picture to us both; despite being a selfie, it was one of those candid pictures that was impossible to fake. I think it existed between a half dozen other pictures, all traditional portrait selfies that lacked any sense of originality. This picture had been different; it had somehow captured the carefree nature of our love.

I took the picture from the fridge and examined it closely; it appeared as it always had to me. I turned it over briefly, and saw a plain white back, unblemished, save for a few characters in the bottom corner.

“bit.ly/bt26”

I blinked at it, recognizing it as a short URL, but never recalling it being there previously. Rich’s last words lingered in my head.

“You told me to tell you to check the picture on the fridge.”

I made my way down the hall to the office, using the wall for support as my legs tried to give out, perhaps in self preservation. I sat at my computer, and put the picture face down next to the keyboard. A touch of the mouse and the monitors blinked to life.

I slowly, deliberately, and painfully typed in each letter of the URL on the picture. Then I paused.

I reached up and again pushed against my cheek. I nearly coiled back from my own hand. The pain was still very real.

I considered my position, and the possible outcomes.

The first was that this was some strange, elaborate joke that had gone way too far. It made me sick to think that could happen, but it was, admittedly, my best option.

The other option here was that there was no humor involved, and I was suffering from a delusion that I could not distinguish from reality. Or, more accurately, the reality that everyone else agreed upon; that bite still felt real. That bite remained to be my own reality.

I pushed the enter key, and the browser popped to life, quickly redirecting to a Docs page with some text. It was not unfamiliar, even if I felt like I had never seen this version before.

Lizzie and I had both created a document, hidden from each other, in the event something happened. It was a way to say anything left unsaid, and provide some direction to anything in our digital or past life we may want saved, communicated, etc.

Funnier when we thought it up, the title, bold and underlined, stung more than it should.

“Irish Goodbyes: Lizzie’s Edition”

Access to this all but confirmed that there was no humor in the night’s events. This is a place I’d not be if Lizzie was still here.

The document began with another link; even before inferring forgotten (or, more accurately I suppose, purged) events, there was a clue that her passing was sudden. Both of us knowing of the document would have likely started it with some kind words if we knew our departure from each other was imminent, and none was here.

I clicked the link, but the nouns and verbs in the URL gave away the fate. My eyes welled up as the headline appeared:

“Two Killed In Wrong Way Crash”

It was dated over a year ago; it identified Lizzie by name, the victim of the driver’s addictions. I began to trudge through the article, but stopped when I reached a sentence that ended “...remained trapped despite the efforts of first responders.”

The picture of the crash showed black twisted metal. Lizzie’s car was a pearly white. There had been a fire.

I closed the link and was returned to the Irish Goodbye document.

I sat, staring through heavy droplets, and made my way down the document.

The link, clearly, had not been added by Lizzie. Checking revision history, I see that it had been added by me, 2 months after the accident. I searched my brain for any sense of recollection, but found none.

The rest of the document was about what I would have expected; there was a short declaration of love that felt sincere, but like it was never meant to be read. It had a lightness to it that would have been delightful had it not been the last I’d have of her.

At the very bottom there was another link, shortened, followed by Lizzie’s email. I clicked it, and was taken to a login page for an online photo service. I typed in her email, and let the cursor blink in the password box for a moment. The document gave no clues, and I knew Lizzie had a variety of different formats it could be. Or it could be none of them.

Below the input box, I clicked the “Reset Your Password” link.

It once again asked for an email, and I provided the one from Lizzie’s sheet. A prompt popped up:

“What do I hate that you love?”

I smiled; a question vague enough to be secure, but specific enough to us that no doubt was left in my mind.

I typed “laugh”.

Incorrect - 3 Attempts Remaining

I paused, and typed “yourlaugh”, as if it was a password.

Incorrect - 2 Attempts Remaining

I reread the question to be sure I had not missed anything, but pushed on. I tried “your laugh”.

The screen popped through the logins and to a picture of Lizzie, held tilted back in full laughter. Underneath it, a caption describing how she loved me for forcing laughs out of her even when she most resisted.

One after another, she had saved a picture, a memory, and shared some note of appreciation for our love.

I sat reading through them, crying a mix of happy and sad with each new picture.

I was unsure at how many times I had seen this album, but tonight, it once again felt new. And with that newness, it seemed to have the strongest healing effect.

I closed the album, closed the browser, and sat in my office chair, staring at that picture on the Ferris wheel.

From the kitchen I could still hear Lizzie’s playlist, running through in the background as I had lived through this discovery for, according to that document’s access, the 23rd time.

It was then that I heard her voice; it was unmistakable, and without a hint of duress.

“Thomas… come dance with me baby”, she invited me back into the kitchen.

I sat, and my eyes caught an orange bottle of pills next to the mouse. I examined them, googled them, and held the powerful anti-psychotic medications in my hand. They were apparently often prescribed to those suffering from delusions after a loss. Judging by the number of pills in the can, and the date on the jar, some days had been skipped.

She called out again, “Honey, will you dance with me?”

This time, she sounded a little further away. I stared at the pills for another moment.

I placed the bottle of pills back up on my desk, and chose to rejoin my wife in the kitchen for one more night.

Making my way back to her in the kitchen, I called out my intentions to her, and perhaps, to myself.

“My love, I will dance with you every night I have left.”

And so I did.