This was a random idea, but I have a pretty good idea how how it'll play out. The characters aren't mine, the concept belongs to Jason Robert Brown, and whatever lyrics I end up using in later chapters are his too. In summary, this is Frasier and Lilith's relationship as portrayed in The Last Five Years. Feedback is revered and adored.
The Last Five Years
By Dulcey
He's been gone for three days now. Three nights I've woken up sobbing, and three mornings there's been no one beside me in the bed where Frasier used to tickle my feet, or press his forehead to mine so his brilliant blue eyes were the first thing I saw when I woke up. He's somewhere across the country now, Nebraska maybe, or possibly Montana, en route to Seattle. He told me two weeks ago that he was leaving to move across the country. That our attempt at saving our marriage had failed, and he'd already seen a lawyer about divorce. And that, although he didn't say this out loud, he'd come to hate me so much that even living on the same side of the continent was now intolerable to him.
When I began to cry, he just stood there, and made no effort to comfort me. This wasn't the Frasier I knew. This wasn't the man I'd married. It was really over, and the worst thing about it was that it was all my fault.
Maybe Frasier was right, maybe I was simply a statistic. A woman in her mid-thirties who was measuring her accomplishments to what she'd expected to accomplish. I wasn't sure how much I believed this, but it was the only explanation I could come up with as to why I would cheat on my husband, and abandon my son. Why I would hurt the two people who meant the most to me, and shatter the happiness Frasier and I had spent the last five years building.
There's a corner of the dining room that smells like him. I don't know why and I don't know how, but when I stand there, I can sniff the cologne he always wore, and feel his arms encircle my waist, his breath warm my neck, and experience the feeling that my husband was here, and I was safe, and nothing could possibly make my life any better than it already was.
He said he loved me. He said he'd never leave me. Of course, that was before I slept with another man and broke his heart. I deserved every bit of what I was feeling. Deserved more, even. Was this what it had been like for Frasier when I was gone? Did he stand in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror like I am now, hating himself for driving the love of his life away? No, he wouldn't have done that. He would have hated me for leaving. I don't hate him for going. I hate myself for making him go.
Sometimes when it gets too unbearable I go lie down on the couch in his study. The room's just as he left it. He took most of his books with him, so the shelves and walls are depressingly bare. But the sofa is still in there, and the worn red blanket on top of it. If I pull it over me, I can pretend that he's lying right here with me, and fall asleep for a few precious hours, forgetting that he's gone, and that I'm the reason he left. It's too much. I can't go on.
But I have Frederick. My son. Frasier's son. A little piece of him who still hugs me, who still loves me. And it's for him that I continue to go on.
There's an envelope in the desk drawer. I left it as it was for the first two days, and finally opened it this morning when I couldn't stand it any more. Inside were the pictures of me that Henri had taken, the ones I'd given Frasier for his birthday two years ago. Tears came to my eyes as I realized that he hadn't cared enough about me to take them with him. Why should he care? What had I done besides break hisheart and shatter his life?
The days tick by. My life remains empty and meaningless without Frasier.