Goodbye.

May 16th was the last day I saw her. She was to go down before me; I had finals, after all, and it would be much too stressful to deal with those and shipping her down at the same time. She was to go down, and be tried for lease by some younger girls. We would reunite in a few weeks.

May 16th was the last day I saw her.

June 3rd is painfully etched into my memory, one of those horrifying days that no matter how much time passes will always be unerringly vivid. I was getting spotty updates from my sister about her- they thought her coffin joint might be infected from the injection she got earlier that week, and she was at some equine clinic where they were monitoring her. It would be okay. The night before, restless and worried, I had wandered around campus a listless ghost, incapable of fretting in my dorm. I would up in a shrouded enclave with some statue dedicated to someone who was probably importance, once. I lay in the grass, in pajamas and a tee, trying to lose myself in the numbness that seeped through me from the dewy grass. It'll be okay, no matter what, I told myself. Worst case scenario- it is infected, but we catch it and treat it. Worst case scenario, she's a pasture ornament for life- a wonderful, cookie gobbling pasture ornament. That was my worst case scenario. Sometimes I look back and laugh, laugh that sort of hollow, disbelieving laugh. Worst case scenario.

I was fraught with worry that day, waiting for a call from my sister with updates. Rush was in surgery; they were scoping the joint to determine for sure whether it was an infection or some other cause. She'd call me when she was out. It was dead week- plenty to do, so I kept busy to distract myself. I went to class, my phone on vibrate at my finger tips. Nothing. I went to another class, and another, and still nothing. My sister had told me earlier about all the forms she had to sign- financial and liability forms, one about anesthesia. Worry itched at my mind. I spent my IS class googling her surgery, googling anesthesia, googling worst case scenarios.

There was an extra credit lecture an hour or so after class, so I went to that to distract myself. I clutched my phone in my hand while I scribbled down notes about recent upheavals in Nepal's political order. A friend sat next to me, there because he had nothing else to do, and hey, it's extra credit! An hour in to the lecture people trickle out, but the professor drones on. I glanced at my phone, and panic when I see two missed calls and a voicemail. I shoved papers in my bag frantically and stood up to leave; my friend noticed and stood with me. We left together, me desperately clawing at my phone trying to make it play the voicemail. He chatters inanely.

I listen to the voicemail, but I don't quite understand it- it's the veterinarian, and he's babbling on about something, apologizing about something, but I don't quite understand. What was he saying? I didn't understand. Confused, I wander dazedly towards my dorm room. I call my sister, and she's crying I'm crying and suddenly I'm falling to the ground and gasping for breath and I understand, I understand, she's gone, and I don't want to understand.

She tells me to call the vet and I do. He's so nice, so apologetic, and I just want to scream at him because she's gone, she's gone, and I trusted him and she's gone, but he's so nice and apologetic. So instead I listen as he explains what happens, how he explains that it was a statistical impossibility, she was that one in ten thousand, and I alternate between crying my guts out to a stranger and sniffling as I try to listen to his sympathies.

Somehow I stumble to my dorm, still talking to the vet, still trying to comprehend it, and I do and I don't and it's all one big mistake because there's no way she's gone, but he keeps saying it and I don't know what to do. And then the call ends and I'm falling to the bed, face in my hands, and my roommate comes over with tissues and then leaves the room. And I don't know what to do. What do I do? She's gone and there's nothing to do without her, I'm nothing without her.

I cry a lot. I stare at the wall a lot. I call my sister, and we cry together, and I crawl into my closet where I have one of her blankets and I wrap myself in it, inhaling that disgusting dirty manure because it smells like her and nothing will ever smell like her again. I'm broken, shattered, all at once destroyed in a way I never knew possible. I scream, silently, occasionally. It doesn't feel real, sometimes; I wasn't there, therefore it didn't happen. I'm in denial, rationalizing, trying to find a way out- I realize that, sometimes, but I'm in denial about that realization too and I don't know what to do, what do I do?

I sit in my room, at my computer, in silence for an hour. I put a post on facebook so that people will leave me alone. And then I sit, staring. My brain shuts off and I don't think, about her, about anything- I'm numb, empty, void of life. Because if I think I remember, and I don't want to remember. I don't want to think. I don't want to exist, not without her. And she doesn't exist anymore, does she. Not anymore. But I can't sit in there forever, and I promised my sister I would keep busy to keep distracted, so I blot my eyes and wipe my nose and trundle myself off to a review session for a final. My eyes leak as I walk, but I find that I no longer hold value in the opinion of the world around me. Everything has become terribly insignificant in the face of losing the only thing of significance.

I walk into the room, steely-willed but watery-eyed, and tell myself not to think. Don't think, don't remember, and it won't be true. I sit down, and my friends whisper concerns, but I find that I've lost the capacity of speaking without falling apart and it takes me a bit before I can give a curt "I don't want to talk about it." I sit in the session, writing down insights and sniffling and wiping away tears and all the while I'm staring straight ahead, because if I acknowledge anyone my carefully constructed illusion of fantasy will crumble and I'll have to accept reality.

The session's over, and I don't want to talk to anyone, so I leave quickly before anyone can try to talk to me. My feet are taking me towards the door, towards the exit, towards my dorm, and my mind is wandering already and my mind is crumbling and I'm on the verge of that silent screaming when Will appears from behind me. And he asks me whats wrong, and he's so wonderful and dear and completely oblivious and I don't want to talk about it, but it's Will, so words and sobs come spewing out of my mouth and I tell him everything, I tell him she's gone, and I'm forced to acknowledge it for myself and I'm crying some more, but he doesn't care because he's wonderful Will.

He doesn't say much except some few expletives, and some words of encouragement, and some reassurance that I won't fail my finals. And he deposits me at my dorm and I'm alone again and suddenly I find I don't want to be alone, alone with my thoughts, because I'm not so good at pretending any more. So I have another good cry and bout of denial and then I'm trundling myself off to the Research Commons, distracting myself with graphs of elasticity of demand and the imposition of tariffs and I'm leaky eyed but distracted, a bit. And then it's 2 am and I'm kicked out, wandering, because it's 2 am and I don't want to be alone with my thoughts, those terrible terrible thoughts of her laying there, dead, because she's not she's not she's not and if I don't think about it it's not true. But I have nowhere else to go, even if I'm afraid to fall asleep, so I walk back to my dorm.

And there's Danish, and I'm panicking, but he's seen me and it's too late to run. And he's hugging me and talking about he's sorry but I don't want to talk about it, not with him, so I'm silent and we walk up the stairs in silence. And then we're in the hallway and he hugs me one last time, and I break the silence and blurt out something about how I don't want to sleep, but that was stupid, stupid, because now he's telling me to come to his room. I don't have the presence of mind to say no, so I find myself in his room minutes later and we're watching Psych because he's trying to cheer me up, but who can think about cheering up at a time like this? Why would I want to cheer up? It feels like a betrayal, so I sit in silence and numbness and stare at the screen, unseeing. And he's trying to talk to me about her, trying to get me to open up or cry or do something, anything, but he's no wonderful Will and I find myself resenting him for his efforts, because he just makes everything worse.

Eventually I slip off the bed, put my shoes on, and leave. It's late, or early, or whatever, and I'm still scared to sleep but I'm exhausted and have a terrible headache from crying, and I end up drifting off to sleep for a few hours.

When I wake up, I'm uncomprehending for a moment; then it comes rushing back and I'm sobbing into my pillow, and I don't normally dream but I did tonight, vividly, and she was dead even in my dream. The next few days go on much the same- I avoid talking to anyone, I go to class, I cry in my room. I don't want to be one of those people who punishes themselves, but I can't bring myself to eat, so I don't. I avoid sleep like the plague- I learned my lesson that first night. The next night I couldn't bear it and went for a run at 1am, sprinting down the trail trying to leave my demons behind. I find I can't cry and sprint at the same time, so I alternate both, and I run until I can't and then I turn around and run so more. There's a cat in the parking lot I'm racing by, and I stop dead and collapse in the gravel, breathing in salty tears and gasping and staring at this cat. I sit there, trying to make friends with this cat, but it's feral and skittish and runs off after an indiscriminate period of time. I sit there until I feel the sting of the gravel cutting into my skin, then I drag myself to the grass and sit there.

But my thoughts catch up to me and I'm running again, running from her memory because right now all it holds is untolerable pain, and I'm running past the school in the other direction until I can't run anymore and I'm stumbling, jogging, and I find a grassy lawn to sit in. I hide in the shadow of a bush, and a sprinkler nearby keeps passing over me and raining down freezing water, but it's welcome somehow and sparks something in me and I sit there reveling in the numbness and somewhere deep down I know I'm punishing myself again but I don't care, so I sit there until I'm soaked through and then I'm stumble-running down back to the school. As I near the dorms I spot two people, a couple, wandering in the same direction, and they see me and I freeze for a moment before darting off like a skittish deer. I wander towards the quad and find more sprinklers, so many more sprinkers, and I create this numbing march through them and then sit in the line of spray, numbing myself again. It's the closest to peace I can get.

At some point I rouse myself, wander back to my dorm, and stand in a cold shower with my clothes on until I'm chattering and shivering, and then I go and sit on the balcony, drenched through, to find that peace in numbness once more.

I thought this post was going to be a reflection upon losing her, but I still don't know if I can put that into words yet. So instead, this is my account of losing her. It was supposed to be a reflection, a step towards letting go, but I guess I'm not ready for that yet. Maybe next year.