Azalea

Her funeral is quiet. Her family buries her here - she hates Detriot. I don't go to work for almost a month. Jonghyun worries. Jinki worries. Even Jenny starts to worry. Taemin keeps the apartment because he says that it belonged to him and her and he'd be damned if he gave it up. I don't tell my parents about us at all - I don't know where to begin - and when they ask me how I am, it takes all of my strength to say, "Fine."

And I don't know how to be okay anymore, because I keep waking up and expecting her to be there - keep waiting to have her tell me to get out of bed, to tell me that she has to get home to tape Hannibal and that so-and-so is overrated. I'm sorting my clothes to take them to the dry cleaners' one afternoon in May and I find one of her shirts mixed in with mine - heaven knows I'm miserable now. (I can't leave my bed for almost two weeks.)

It's hard, but I do get better - eventually - not for my sake, but for hers. She said she didn't want me to cry, so I try not to - but behind closed doors it's a whole other story - and I try hard to move on with my life. When the museum sponsors a trip to central Europe, I go. I try to numb myself with work and friends, but it doesn't work, not as much as I'd like it to.

Azalea became a piece of me, and when she died, a piece of me died too.