S.W.A.T. (book 2 of the hexology in seven parts)
Chapter 2: She's Not You

The pain was almost unbearable, but now he had no choice in the matter. And at least this would end. Not like that other pain, the dull ache in his heart. That had driven him to this.

The blood colored the ice-cold water. He had thought it would deaden the feeling in his wrists. But still it hurt so badly, and he wondered for how much longer. Aaron’s mind drifted back through the pain, to that fateful day. It marginally dulled the pain swilling about his mind, as well as his wrists.

He had begged them not to bring her in. It was a travesty. How could anyone, let alone a thing replace Sarah? And then he saw her. She wore that dress; the same one Sarah had worn when he first met her in the park. Then Aaron caught that aroma of sweet Lilacs. She turned her head the way Sarah always did, and smiled. And Aaron’s heart had melted.

It could have broken in to a thousand pieces where he stood. But the experts at Loved Ones Ltd. knew their craft, and plied it well. It was as if Sarah had never died. Her soft blue eyes bore in to his heart, and dragged him back from the brink of despair. He had fallen in to it, when Precious, Aaron’s pet name for his beloved, had died so suddenly.

He had taken her in his arms, and they had just stood. Lost in a moment snatched back from the cruel hand of death. And Aaron caressed that soft hair he knew so well. Sarah, the new Sarah had been meticulously created from Aaron’s memories. She matched his every expectation of his dead wife. She was perfect in every way.

When Aaron became distracted, as if he were remembering the accident. And she could tell, it was in her very make up. Aaron’s new wife somehow always found some little way, to subtly cheer him from the blue funk he had slipped in to. She found him playing a record of that song. The one he and precious had first danced to. And tenderly slipping her hand over his shoulder, she drew him up in to her arms. Aaron moved around the room with her in a daze of memory. The one word ever on his lips that he never dared to intone, “precious.”

Until she drew him closer and their lips met. And like the sealing of a spell, Aaron knew she had returned. But still in the bliss he had returned to, somewhere deep down, in a locked chamber of his heart. The truth still sat in an endless scream of “she’s not you.” Ever present, but just on the edge of his consciousness. It gnawed at the joy he seemed to have snatched back.

But the voice was too quite to give more than ripples on the surface of his soul, until today. When the waters of despair had broken through the man made dam of his heart. And Aaron found himself staring in to the fateful mirror hung over the basin. He knew what he must do. And so as the last of his life’s blood ebbed away, Aaron sank to his knees. Like a sacrifice at the alter.

That was how she found him. She tried to stop the flow, but it was all too late. How could he leave her like this? They had been so happy together. If only he had told her, given some sign. Crouching over his now still frame, Sarah took in every mark on his face. The now dead eyes, the final pained expression. Then looking down through her tears she noticed the card in his top pocket, Loved ones Ltd. and a telephone number. Numbly rising like automation, Sarah stumbled over to the telephone. She dialed the number, and choking back her tears she waited for the salesman to answer. “Hello, I want to place an order, yes it’s my husband.”