South of Nowhere Tomorrow

**This was for an English assignment. I've changed the names around, obviously.**

**It's not my favourite work but tell me what you think.**

I'm nervous.

No, I'm more than nervous.

I'm terrified.

I can feel the stinging bile in my throat and the flutter of nerves in my stomach, and it's all because of one thing.

Tomorrow.

That day, which will come in just a few hours, is going to change my life forever.

You see, tomorrow I'm going to see my girl. Dressed in white, music may play and people will cry. Tissues will scatter and I know I'm not going to be able to walk out of the double doors at the end of the day without a dry eye or a trembling hand.

She means everything to me.

I look around the room and I smile. There's pictures of us adorning the walls, her idea.

She said it made it look more homely.

I pad barefoot over to one of the pictures and take it delicately between my fingers. It's one of us that I don't even remember being took, but she says she does.

Kyla, my sister, she took it when she was learning photography with our friend Sean.

We're at a bonfire, only about twenty years old, I have my arms around my girl and the light from the fire is making her face brighter. She's smiling and I'm not sure if it's from the kiss I'm placing on her temple or just the atmosphere of being there that night.

I tell her everyday that it's her body that I fell in love with first, I mean she is sexy. I always tell her I'm vain and shallow, and she used to laugh at me and find it humorous.

She dosen't laugh anymore but I think it's just because she knows it was her smile I fell in love with. She knows I'm not shallow or vain when it comes to her.

She used to tell me that she wasn't photogenic, that she hated having pictures taken if she wasn't ready and she would ask me to take another.

But this picture makes my heart pound harder than any posed picture, or any wide-eyed smile.

Because she is natural here. The glint in her eye, that goddamn piece of hair that's stuck on her lip gloss and the fact she dosen't care. It's all Spencer, all real.

I changed her mind recently, about her being photogenic and she didn't argue with me.

I asked her to marry me a few days after that photograph was taken.

I know, I know, we were young.

I couldn't help it. I'd had the ring for longer than I could remember and I was waiting for the right moment, the romantic setting and the perfect words.

It didn't happen like that.

It happened in our living room.

We were watching some film (something she loved and I hated) and I spent the entire time watching her. I listened to her laugh and linked our fingers together. She would occasionally look away from the movie to ask if I'd like a drink, or to share some chocolate with me. She whispered that she loved me when some sappy romantic music played and I pulled her closer to me.

When the movie ended she looked at me with watery blue eyes and asked me if I liked it. For the ten times we had seen it I had lied ten times and told her I loved it, it made her smile and didn't fail this time. Her hand cupped my face and quoted the film, asking what would make my happy ending.

I replied being able to call her my wife.

We fumbled around and she took in a deep breath. I was shaking when I proposed properly on our hardwood floor with the brown rug (which hid the coffee stain I made a month earlier.)

She said yes mid-kiss with college kids running down the halls outside.

Hardly romantic but she cried for hours.

We decided on a long engagement because of our age. I could have paid for a golden wedding then and there, but she told me she didn't want that. She wanted to live together away from college halls and start a life like that.

I agreed, as long as she wore that ring I didn't mind.

My mom gave me a congratulatory card and a brief hug when I told her, saying she would attend the wedding and to inform her soon.

It was the closest we had been in four years.

Spencer's parents...they took it differently.

Her dad smiled for an hour and kept telling us that he was proud we were taking our relationship seriously. After four and a half years, I was taking it more than seriously.

Her brother Glen gave his sister a warm hug and congratulated us. Not before telling me he'd rip me limb from limb if I ever hurt her, female or not.

Her mom...She was quiet for days. She didn't even pretend to be happy for us, she just got up and walked out. Breaking my girl's heart at the same time. I watched her leave as I dried Spencer's tears, and I'll never forget that.

She finally came around. Knocking on our door at dinner-time, brandishing a wedding magazine and some stupid hat she insisted she would wear on the day.

I took a page from Glens book, taking her to the side and telling her if she ever made my baby cry again I wouldn't be held responsible for my actions. A mother or not.

Spencer took it upon herself to decorate our house.

Everything is neutral and calming, except the office which is blue - I never asked about that. When she walked out with paint on her face, holding a brush and smiling widely I knew she could have painted it grey and I wouldn't have cared.

I sit on our bed and sigh loudly.

It's strange without her in the house but it's not like she can be here. It's the longest I've been away from her since we were 16 and I'm 27 now.

That's over ten years of contact to adjust to overnight.

I don't like it.

I reach for my phone before stopping myself. She wouldn't answer anyway.

Tomorrow will come quicker if I sleep.

--

I straighten out my clothes and swallow thickly, looking at the doors that hold my fate behind them.

I walk slowly, my heels clicking and my resolve dropping each and every step that I make.

Slowly I open the door and there stands my sister, tears streaming down her pretty face. Next to her stands Aiden, he gives me a smile but I know he wants to cry; he's a baby like that.

"Ms. Davies?" I turn to the man behind me and see Glen, Paula and Arthur behind him.

"Mrs." I correct. "Mrs. Davies, I'm married." Maybe not legally, or technically, but Spencer was my wife.

"I apologize." He says that a lot this man. I don't think he knows what an apology is anymore, it's just automated. "I understand you have made a decision, about Spencer's wellbeing?"

I look to her parents. Eyes red from crying, mascara stains down her mothers face and her dad has lost too much weight.

Her brother is in no better shape. I think he turned back to drugs.

"I have." I look down to the floor and fight back the tears, I can cry later.

"Ashley, honey." I feel Paula come over to me and wrap her arms around my shoulders. "I know you don't believe me when I say it's for the best, and I don't want it to be true - but it's in Spencer's best --"

"I agree." My eyes snap up to the doctor.

"You agree?" He looks confused and for one sick moment everyone else looks relieved.

"Turn off the life-support."

My world goes black when I say those words.

I've practically killed my wife.

Not the driver of that truck who was too wasted to see my girl's car.

Not the medics who didn't arrive fast enough.

Not the medicine that didn't make her brain function.

She'd been in here for the past fifteen months and she hadn't changed one, tiny bit.

She didn't move, blink or breathe on her own and it was killing me.

Paula and the other doctors told me that there was no way that Spencer would ever come back.

Her body was there, but my Spencer was gone.

I turned off the life-support.

I killed her.


End file.

South of Nowhere, Angst