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It was supposed to get easier, but instead each year feels like a fresh cut.
Simon rests his head against the cold stone wall of his prison cell, eyes squeezed shut to hold back traitorous tears that will inevitably come. Sometimes, in the dark, he can almost sense him. He could swear he feels a hand resting upon his shoulder, and isn’t that ludicrous? Why would Horace’s spirit linger, offering comfort to the man who’d as good as killed him on the anniversary of his death?
The grief is intense as ever when it chooses to rear its head. But he’s grown around it. He’s learned what mask he needs to wear in the confines of prison, and he’s detached himself from his past. At least on the outside.
But, on nights like these, he’s still the same, scared, lonely child who’d been desperate for salvation. Who wanted to avenge his father, a man he’d naively envisioned as a hero, and damned the person who truly loved him in the process.
He retreats to his bed and pulls the blanket around himself, choking back emotions as he senses the imagined weight of someone beside him. In his hand he clenches a lone chess piece. The knight. He’s kept it with him, not quite knowing why he took it at first. A trophy perhaps? But now it’s taken on a different role. A source of comfort, a memory of his greatest mistake.
I miss you.