a moment together - ronance

Est-ce la mort?

Prompt: Nancy takes up painting since losing Robin so that she can paint the memories of her.

Nancy paints now, took up the hobby when Robin left.

She paints her feelings. She doesn't discuss or disclose any of her emotions. Instead, she communicates them through her brush strokes, conveys every tear with each drop and sprays the rainbow with her smiles.

It's a quiet practice. The buzz of the fridge, the wind chime outside her window, the slight stomp of the upstairs neighbours. These are the only remaining disruptions to the stillness of the moment.

She paints the stars; the flurry of constellations that seem so inconsequential from earth. How could something so significant appear so small, so utterly ordinary? In a sky full of stars, millions of them, how could any one be exceptional?

Nancy thinks she's like the stars - bright, bare, but entirely average.

She paints the people she's lost. Their faces, the grooves of their bones and the waves of their hair.

She sketches the memories of a simpler time, a time filled with more joy and less grief. Nancy's not certain remembering is exactly a wise idea, maybe it's just pouring salt on the never-healed wounds and surrendering herself to the darkness. Maybe she's just asking for more pain, even inviting the devil to her door, but she doesn't care.

She greets the devil, arms wide and ready for another hit.

***

She doesn't realize what the little blue dots are until they all come together to circle her eyes. She hadn't actually been consciously aware she'd been thinking of Robin. She always is, though.

Her greatest fear is forgetting. Robin's lips on hers, Robin's hands entwined with hers. Robin, with her. They're all joint memories. She doesn't remember Robin without her, her without Robin.

She isn't anything without Robin.

She's nothing now.

She doesn't want to leave behind the life she used to have, the life she lost. The life that was taken away from her.

Nancy draws the night they meandered their way to the beach; the sand in their toes, the coolness of the water, the simplicity of it all.

There really was nothing special about her, about either of them really. They had been two ordinary people, who'd met, fallen in love (and hadn't lived happily ever after).

Two ordinary people squandering the earth, with scattered thoughts, aimless steps. They had been directionless and somehow, had found each other.

Two ordinary people, making something extraordinary.

Then she paints the sun, because it eclipses everything else (just like they did).

***

The grief is getting to her, she knows this.

It's slowly taking pieces away; small ones, but the days add up.

And now, after all this time, part of her is missing. Robin's gone, of course, but some measure of her has left as well.

She searches the colours for answers, for clues to what (else) she's lacking. She wants to go find something, anything, to fill the gap. To quiet the pain, to recollect details of the past, silence the foreboding of the future.

But there isn't anything, she'd simply be seeking out smoke.

They're gone, those pieces of her, they're lost forever.

***

She has too many paintings of Robin, but Robin's the only thing she knows. It's second nature to design the contour of Robin's face. The movements are muscle memory; she paints Robin while she dreams, as she walks down the street, while she cleans the sole plate in the sink.

She paints the ring Robin would've given her, if Robin had turned right instead of left. Nancy quietly laughs at how big it had been - the police officer handing her the narrow sphere of silver, which she had put on immediately. It had been exceedingly large for her finger and had fallen off right away, which had just made her smile because it was just so Robin.

Now she wears the ring on her neck, safe from the paint and closer to her heart.

***

She knows Robin would've hated to see her like this - a fragment of herself, a sliver of what she used to be. Robin would've shaken her by the shoulders, told her to wake up and face the music. Robin would've told her to be strong and assured her she would be alright.

But that was the thing - Robin was the only one that could light a fire inside her. With Robin gone, it was like someone had blown out the match.

In her dreams Robin holds her like she used to, strokes her hair and whispers words of comforts. Robin's always there, but her face is slowly blurring every night, each feature going more out of focus.

And she cries because Robin's gone, and can't she have Robin for just a few moments, while she's sleeping? Is that too much ask?

But dreams don't offer her any escape, and she's already living her nightmare.

***

One day, she doesn't paint Robin.

This fact frightens her more than it probably should, and she gets up before dawn so she can do it before the sun comes up. She paints Robin leaning over their balcony, consumed with a smirk and looking to the sky.

What if everyone forgets Robin? What if the world continues to turn, the people keep on living and life goes on?

She wants the whole world, every single person out there, to know who Robin was, to know what Robin did and how Robin loved, to know that Robin mattered, that Robin still matters and that death doesn't change that.

It's her debt to pay. To the world. To Robin.

Thus, she immortalises Robin in her art; she stains Robin's soul on her canvas and engraves Robin's heart in every piece of her work.

She won't let the world forget the woman she loved. She won't let them forget Robin Buckley, the woman who was fierce and stubborn, the woman who fought for everything that she had and didn't take anything for granted. She won't let them forget the girl who had raised her sister, forced to grow up faster than anyone should. She refuses to let anyone leave behind the kindest friend who was always their for her platonic (with a capital P) soulmate. She refuses to let anyone leave behind the memories of the woman who had told Nancy she loved her when they were out grocery shopping because she felt like it, the woman who was determined and confident, but stumbled over her words when she was scared.

The woman who had loved, who had truly loved.

She won't let them forget. And even if they do -

She remembers, she always will.

She remembers Robin Buckley.