The poetry of a dead man [h.s]

The art of grieving

This chapter is heavily connected to Copper Ridge so just to freshen up your memory here's a short recap on what you should know before reading this:

- The couple Ana and Adam travels to Marblemount ranger station to hike on the Copper Ridge trail. Morning of the first day of their hike, Ana spots shoeprints all around their car that they slept in.

- By the trailhead they spot a board that has missing person posters on them (the people on these posters as described what happened to them in CR are the very same four people we will see Harry's perspective of in the beginning of this chapter)

- They start their hike. We soon learn that Adam is an ass.

- Someone is outside their tent at night.

- They get lost. Harry shows himself to them for the first time, offering to help them find their way again.

- Adam is an ass pt.2.

- Ana finds out Adam has been cheating on her. Adam leaves their tent and night after their fight and is never seen again.

- Ana asks Harry to help look for him when he's not yet back the morning after, Harry agrees.

- A man comes running towards Ana, panicking about how he saw someone drag a body away last night. Ana realizes that Harry is not who he said he was.

- Harry knocks her out.

***

Days without Lenore were like a never-ending suffering.

Maybe there was a God. If God was real, then maybe he was punishing Harry for what he had done, for his sins, by taking her away from him. He did not really believe that any God existed, but in moments of uttermost despair his mind wandered to why this had happened, what he had done to deserve this happening to him. He did not believe that things did or did not happen to you because you deserved them or not, but it was easy to try and find an explanation to make the pain hurt less.

He was meant to spend the rest of his days with her. He was meant to love her until there were no longer air in his lungs, until the blood in his veins ran dry, until the last sun set, and the last moon rose.

He was meant to hold her hand through everything, through every setback, every success, through tears and through happiness. Both their body and souls were meant to be intertwined until they eventually decomposed.

He was meant to build a life together with her. They were meant to start a family. They would buy a new house, a bigger one. He would work on the nursery whilst Lenore was watching him with a soft smile on lips and a hand lovingly running over her stomach in where she carried their first child. They were meant to get a dog, maybe even a cat if Lenore ever got over her fear of them.

He was meant to sell his old car and buy a new one, one big enough for their children's car seats to fit and big enough to have a crate for the dog in the trunk.

He could see it all so clearly how his life was supposed to be.

But now he would never get to experience any of it. He would never buy a big house to raise his children in. He would never work on a nursey in their home. He would never get a dog nor a cat. He would never do any of those things that normal people did for he did not want all that with anyone but Lenore.