This is my first (and only) "Truly, Madly, Deeply" fic. I hope you like it,but it's a bit sad.

I remember painfully clearly the day they got married. I was there in the church, the very last pew in the back, and I remember thinking abstractly about the irony of him marrying her in a church when he didn't believe at all in God. I wasn't bitter—how could I feel bitter when it was making her so happy?—but when I married Nina, we were married by a justice of the peace in a small, dim courthouse. All we could afford.

I didn't let her see me because who wants to see the ghost of her dead husband on her wedding day? But it did hurt to know that I would never be able to go to her again.

There was a cellist playing a solo at the ceremony. I saw her face when she first heard it. I'll never, never for the rest of forever, forget that look and the way she instantly disguised it.

I was alone that night, trying not to think about it, but I found I couldn't stop. The words rang through my head again and again: wedding night, this is their wedding night, their wedding night… And an overwhelming surge of memory and emotion rolled over me like the final wave that sinks the ship on the ocean, and I threw up, unable to deal with the idea of her in bed with another man.

I tried so hard for Nina; God knows I tried to be everything for her, to give her everything she needed, and for the most part, I think I succeeded, but I could never manage the one thing I think she wanted most. I could never give her a baby, no matter how much I tried. She was forgiving, always telling me that it was okay, that she didn't care because she loved me and that would always be enough. And I know she truly meant it every time she said it. Maybe he'll be able to give her both, give her love and a child. But when I think of this, though I realize how happy it will make her, I wonder, will her memory of me fade and be lost? Will the woman I loved—the woman I still love—forget me?

Nina took my cello with her when she moved in with him, so I don't even have that anymore. She needs it more than I do. mark isn't allowed to touch it; she made that clear from the beginning, but he never showed any interest anyway. he knows where the line is and he also knows something else. We both know.

I don't think Nina knows she doesn't love him—not consciously, anyway. I visit sometimes—always from behind the glass wall—and see it. She doesn't look sing and dance with him. She doesn't look at cloud shapes. She won't play our game with him, though he's tried. Her eyes always linger a little too long on my picture; her fingers too long on the smooth, dark wood of my cello. And when she whispers to no one in her sleep at night, it isn't Marks name we hear, but mine. She dreams about doing ordinary things, but always with me. Last night, it was, "Jamie, I'll wash the dishes if you dry." And she doesn't remember it in the morning. Nark knows, but doesn't seem to mind, and for that, I'd thank him if I could. She doesn't know it, but she needs someone to hold her at night, someone to love her, someone warm. I wish it could be me, I desperately want it to be, but it can't, though I'd give up music forever to have her again.

Tonight, I went to see her one last time. I went through the cursed glass wall and bent over her while she slept, held her hand, touched her face, and kissed her, and some part of her recognized me because she said in her sleep, "I love you, Jamie." I told her I loved her, too. That I would wait for her with a duet for piano and cello and a bowl of cornflakes. That she'd see me again when she was done with her life but that, in the meantime, I just wanted her to be happy. That, really, truly, madly, deeply, passionately, remarkably, deliciously, and, yes, juicily, that I was all I wanted.

Licuma Lome: (points at review button) Please?