Larissa Weems X Reader One Shots. <3

Anticipatory Grief. SFW

Summary: Anticipatory grief refers to a feeling of grief occurring before an impending loss. Typically, the impending loss is the death of someone close due to illness — Wikipedia.

Warnings: So much hurt, loss, grief. No comfort. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
_________________________

Larissa shuffles out of bed at four in the afternoon. You're chopping vegetables for dinner — the same dinner you've cooked every day this month (the only thing she can stomach these days). She's up later today, just like all week, despite the early night. She steps into the kitchen; winces at the ache in her spine. You turn around, force a smile, try to bite down the thought that she's almost gone. Two hours later will turn into four, then eight and suddenly her hands are cold and—

"How did you sleep, sweetheart?" you nervously ask and the way her breath catches in her throat as she takes a single step forward creates a pit in your stomach.

Larissa looks tired, pale; when you wrap an arm around her waist and guide her gently, slowly towards a leather, cushioned chair — out of place in the kitchen, in replacement of a stool that Larissa could no longer hop onto — she feels frail, light. It's a sick reminder that you've already lost so much of her.

In a way, grief is nice, it proves you've loved. But today, grief is cruel. When Larissa brokenly replies "Well, darling," the words are swollen with guilt from telling the white lie, but Larissa cant stand seeing the worry knitting your eyebrows together, cant stand the sound of concern in your voice every time you ask a question. She's ridden with guilt; notices that your phone is never on mute anymore — always on alert in case the doctor calls, notices how you used to find joy and comfort in cooking, but now preparing any meal means hours of hand-feeding every bite to her while she cradles a sick-bowl in her arms. Even the simple things — the things no one would analyse — keep Larissa's mind occupied. Like how she hasn't seen you wear a dress in months. Not since Larissa was diagnosed and you had to make sure you always kept emergency medication in your pockets (something that dresses lacked).

You try not to ask too many questions as you feed Larissa dinner. Yet one pulls at your tongue the entire time — how am I supposed to live without you? There's desperation in your eyes and Larissa catches a glimpse of it right before you turn away to wash the dishes. She insists she can manage to stay up and watch TV in the living room with you tonight. You insist she goes back to bed. There's tension in the air — the usual now; it dissipates as you compromise with a shared bath.

The porcelain fills with water gradually and you wonder if this is the last time you'll bathe with Larissa — is it the last time you'll ever see her naked frame? In another life, you're fifty-three and Larissa is seventy-two; you eat berries as you watch the sun rise and drink tea as you watch it set. In this life, you're just unlucky.

You slide into the tub behind Larissa and ease her back onto your chest, thankful that the running tap muffles your sniffle, thankful that Larissa's head falls onto your shoulder and her thin, blonde hair unknowingly brushes the tear off your cheek. You've technically already lost her — she barely resembles the Larissa that you fell in love with; you almost wish you could stop loving her just for that, so that the grief would quit cutting at your heart strings, so that you could finally swallow without the lump in your throat being in the way.

You close your eyes and your lungs burn with the breath you're supposed to take and when you do take it, it comes out shaky and fuck, Larissa wasn't supposed to know you're upset but you feel her tense and no amount of cascading your nails along her arm is enough to melt her back into your skin, but she doesn't ask because she already knows and there's nothing she can do to help but just be there; she isn't even sure if she can do that.

The washcloth is soapy; leaves a trail of suds as it slides along Larissa's skin. She winces, bites her lip in frustration with herself, apologises, asks you to please, just a little lighter, it hurts today and you use your bare hand for the first time ever, knowing it's now routine.

Larissa cringes visibly as she swallows her medication, like usual, and you pray to whoever is listening to let you trade places with her, as always. She falls asleep an hour earlier than normal and you note the change in the back of your mind; scribble it in your notebook before you leave the room.

The wine bottle is emptied within two days and Larissa's washcloth grows cold and mouldy on the edge of the tub by the end of the week; you don't dare throw it out. You wonder if all of the TV shows you started would ever get finished, or if maybe some things are just meant to end unexpectedly and too soon.

"A couple of weeks maybe," the doctor tells you when you stupidly ask again. He looks directly into your eyes with sorrow and you're angry, you're so angry — because it's not just a couple of weeks, it's also a lifetime of grief and heartbreak and longing; it's walking down the cereal aisle and breaking down because Larissa loved that brand of granola. Because the doctor was supposed to save her. Because you were supposed to grow old together and Larissa won't get to do that anymore and you're not sure whether you can do it without her.

When the Pharmacist calls you darling, you dial Larissa's number immediately to make sure it isn't a sign from a higher power telling you that something is wrong. And when you hear an ambulance on your way home, you don't think twice before sprinting. Every coughing fit, you wonder is this it? And every night you cant seem to sleep, constantly thinking and thinking and thinking of that one poem that goes,

In all of time,
I wonder how
Many lives I
Will have to
Live, until I

find my way
back to you.
- dj.