There’s this site called howlongago.com that I use to find out precisely how long I’ve survived without you. I think the only people who use it are people like me, who are counting the days, minutes and hours since something devastating happened; since their world shifted out of focus.

That’s how long it’s been since my world and my heart shattered.

It’s not the first time it shattered, but it was never like this. I’ve never felt this weight before, the weight of loss of love, trust, snuggles and future. It’s funny how things that aren’t there anymore can weigh more than the things we carry around with us.

I’ll never get to feel your stubble or the warmth of your hand. My hand will never feel your heart beating through your chest, because that chest no longer exists in this world. It only exists in my mind now, and sometimes, I wonder if it was even real at all. Did you really come into my life and open me up, comfort me, love me and give me hope? Or was it just a crazy dream of a girl who has lost everything? Sometimes, it seems as if I’m still living in the prison of violence and betrayal, and you were a figment created to comfort me in a world of hurt. You don’t seem real anymore. Nothing feels real anymore, not even the hurt.

I have to live for both of us now and I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know how to live for myself. I have been going through the motions for 6 months, 28 days, 12 hours, 28 minutes and 48 seconds, and that countdown will never end; it will just keep growing. Someday, there might be numbers in the years column and I don’t know how to get there. I don’t know how to make it from here to there without you, and most of the time, I don’t want to.

This is where I hear your voice in my head admonishing me, because you wouldn’t want me to visit howlongago.com as often as I do. You wouldn’t want to be the missing center of my universe. You wouldn’t want me to crumble without you, but the irony is that you kept me from crumbling for so long. I need you to keep me together, but the absence of your beating heart is the very thing that’s causing me to fall apart.