After the End by Alex Kidwell

settled in.
    Brady took a deep breath, grinning and raising his glass to Tracy and Anna. “This smells delicious. Much better than the frozen pizza I had planned.”
    “Agreed.” I toasted them both, but my gaze kept being drawn to Brady, sitting across from me. His hair was still mussed from where my fingers had been caught in silk-soft waves, his cheeks were flushed a bit, and I liked to think it was more than just the wine and the candles that made him smile like that. It was terrifying to feel the surge of heat again, to be caught up in someone’s eyes. It was like I was waking up, bit by bit, the fog of the past two years melting in a puddle of peach pie and borrowed scarves.
    After dinner, Brady and I found ourselves in the kitchen, washing dishes side by side, the gentle clink of plates and cups underscoring the soft music coming from the other room. We were silent, the two of us, bubbles caught on my arms, Brady’s head bent over the drying rack.
    I’d kissed him. Impulsively, sweetly, I’d kissed him. In that moment, there’d been no Aaron at all. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what that meant. Ever since he’d died, ever since someone had taken my heart and laid it in cold dirt, had covered it with etched stone, people had been telling me to move on . To mourn him and to learn to live again.
    It’s what he’d want , I’d been told.
    You deserve to find someone new. As if it was that simple. As if my life could be shaken like a snow globe, turned over and inside out and the view changed. It was a puzzle, missing pieces forgotten as I struggled to make a new image whole.
    I wouldn’t want him to move on. That was my deep, dark secret. If I’d been the one to die, if it’d been me, I wouldn’t want him to find solace in someone else’s arms. Those were my kisses, soft and gentle on his lips. My laugh that had lit up the sky. My hands that had held and stroked and made real. He’d been mine, and I was his. I still was his, wasn’t I? Isn’t that what love was?
    Except I’d kissed Brady.
    Except I wanted to do it again.
    The water swirled down the drain, disappearing in a curl of velvet soapsuds. For a beat, there was nothing. Just us, Brady and I, standing and staring down at the sink.
    “I miss him,” I whispered, voice breaking. “Every second, like I’m screaming all the time, and I can’t stop. I want to go up to people and ask them why they can’t hear it. Why they can be smiling or laughing, why can people eat or drink or live when he’ll never do any of it again. How can I be happy without him? How can anything make any fucking sense?” My eyes went to his, to those damned beautiful depths, so kind and so confused. I could see it in his expression; what could he say? What could anyone?
    “But then I kiss you.” I moved a step forward, a magnet on string, his iron sweet solidness drawing me in. “I kiss you and I don’t miss him. I kiss you and I’m not living in that place. I’m not soaked in sickness and sadness and grief. I just… am . I can breathe.”
    With a soft noise, he reached out for me, gentle fingers trailing along my cheeks before he hooked me in close, before he did just that. He kissed me, hard enough I couldn’t do anything but be right there, with him. In that moment, in that little glimmer of life, I wrapped myself in him.
    “It scares me,” I admitted in a whisper. “I don’t know if I want to keep kissing you forever or hate you for making me forget him.”
    Brady’s lips twisted downward in sympathy as he fussed with my hair, brushing it back from my forehead. “I don’t know what to say to you,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. I just….” Huffing out a sigh, he kissed my forehead and wrapped his arms around me. “I don’t want you to forget him, babe. He was a part of you. He is a part of you. This isn’t you trying to replace him. It’s just where you are now, you know?”
    Face pressed into his chest,