Gingerbread Man by Terri Rimmer - originally published on Associated Content

Looking back she wondered if that night on New Year's Eve, before she knew that at that moment he had died, if that was why she was falling apart - that maybe she knew on a subconscious level that he had gone.
She would later find out, two weeks after his death that he had died, in fact, on that very day.
But, rewind back to right after New Year's Eve when she did now know yet that he was no longer around.
She was sitting in her therapist's office when her cell phone rang. She had just been in the middle of telling her therapist that she didn't know if her boyfriend was dead or alive.
On the other end of the line was a gasping sound: "Ahhhrrggggggg! Ahhhhhrggghhhhh."
"Mark? Mark?" she called, frantically, convinced it was him.
That and the fact that the call was coming from his phone.
The same gasping sound answered her but no matter how many times she tried to get him to respond, it was no use.
The line went dead.
"Oh my God! That was him! He must be alive!" she said to her therapist, urgently, still clutching her phone.
"Why do you think that?"
"It came from his number. He was trying to get in touch with me," she tried to make her understand.
"Some kids probably have his phone, playing a joke on you," her therapist said, calmly, convinced she was nuts.
"No, it was him," she insisted, irritated.
"Does he have any kids in his life?" her therapist asked, patiently.
"Yeah, but they wouldn't do this," she said, knowingly.
"How do you know?"
"I know," she answered, growing more irritated at her now.
She left her therapist's office, went by the store, and called her best friend, telling her the latest.
Two weeks later, when she learned her boyfriend was definitely dead, she got a call on the answering machine but since she didn't have Caller ID she didn't answer it since she got so many bill collectors calling.
At the beep came the message of his distinct voice: "I had a good life with you."
She picked up the phone hurriedly but it was too late. He was gone.
Her best friend gave her hell for weeks after that, that she didn't save the message, alert the media, record it; anything.
"I wasn't thinking like that," she tried to explain in vain.
She wasn't interested in being exploited or exploiting her boyfriend's memory.
But she was comforted by the fact that he had left a message, no matter how crazy her therapist thought it was.
She did know better than to tell anyone else. She knew everyone would think she'd lost her mind.
But it was his voice. She was sure of it.
"Does it comfort you to pretend it's his voice?" her therapist asked her condescendingly.
"No, he really called me," she answered, defensively.
Total silence on the therapist's end.
There were other incidents, too, spiritual happenings she could not put into words but she knew he was there with her, comforting her. Times when she'd lay on the couch crying for him when she would feel his presence so strongly she felt she could almost reach out and touch him.
He even came back one more time for a private moment between them, something she later told a new boyfriend about.
"One more time, huh?" the boyfriend said.
It didn't matter that her friend didn't believe her or that people would sometimes says, "I believe you" when she knew for a fact that they did not.
She knew what was real.
She knew it was real.
"How did that make you feel?" a psychiatrist asked her.
"It made me feel special, like I was chosen by him to get this message," she said, firmly.
The psych research students of the study she was in were scribbling notes furiously but she didn't care.
Even that August day when she was suicidal and a butterfly landed on her chest, sitting there for a full minute before flying away.
Even when an identical butterfly hung out in her garage on the handle of her late boyfriend's lawnmower for two days off and on while she did laundry.
Even when she would often look up and see her late boyfriend's face or feel him holding her while she lay in bed, sleepless in tears.
She knew in her heart he had contacted her.

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