Hot showers didn't drain my thoughts. Coffee didn't ease my confusion. The rain didn't wash away the corrupting sadness buried in my heart. Funny TV shows didn't make me laugh. Her cheesy romantic movies she left on the coffee table before she left didn't make me feel her next to me.

Women didn't make me lose my ideas, they ignited them more...making me remember her with every simple thing I do.

It's like I'd no longer see her again. Like she's gone forever. Like she has fallen in another love, not mine.

The door knocked and my dying hopes came to life. Maybe it's her. I rushed and pulled the door open, only to reveal Hannah's almost perfect figure, and almost perfect face, and almost perfect everything.

"Bonjour," she greeted me with a hug. "I missed you."

I stepped back, letting her walk inside the house. She kicked her heels then placed them neatly beside the wall and then faced me again, a smile on her face. She stepped in front of me and wrapped her arms around my neck.

Her fingers caressed my beard slowly before she spoke again, "I like it. You look different."

"Different?" I asked her and she nodded.

"Good different. You look like you've grown up suddenly," she smiled then walked with me to the couch before she sat on the other side.

"I was thinking about shaving it. It bothers me sometimes," I smiled.

It's absurd when I think about it. So weird. How I grew to actually like talking to Hannah and how she filled that empty space in the house and my thoughts of Pearl's absence. She comes with a ton of positive energy that overrules me sometimes, so I find myself laughing and smiling when I'm with her.

One month made a huge difference. I couldn't talk at the beginning, but now, I can talk to Hannah and my neighbors and the little boy that skates and the old woman that feeds the birds everyday at 6 and every other human.

Hannah was my cure.

"Don't shave it, you look pretty decent now. Not pale," she replied and I held her between my arms. She closed her eyes as if savoring the moment and I liked that. I liked how much she liked to remember everything. Every detail.

I brushed my lips softly on her head before I kissed her with every bit of sadness I withheld in my bones. She sighed and I smiled, falling in love with her sweet scent.

She whispered my name  quietly that I almost lost it.

"I love you," she said suddenly after we I titled her face and locked her eyes with mine.

A tear escaped her eye after I replied to her. She knew I would say this, yet she diligently tried to hear me muttering her same words.

"I can't say the same," I say every time she brings up love.

I can't love after Pearl.

It won't be fair.