It was 5AM.

Trudy stood under the shower faucet and shivered. The ice-cold water numbed her from head to toe. Her teeth chattered so hard she bit her lip, which she could only imagine was turning blue.

Trudy cried. She couldn't stop her tears as they fell in streaks down her porcelain skin. They were lost in milliseconds within the shower, and Trudy hated them. When would her poor heart start to mend?

As the weight of the water pounded her back, Trudy collapsed slowly to her knees, trying to keep balance in her fragile state, and gouging a jagged cut of skin from the top of her right knee. A sharp piece of chipped tile sat in the corner of the tub and she'd found it. It must have broken off sometime last night when her father had showered, but she guessed he hadn't noticed it. 

Just her luck.

The cut formed a small oval that quickly filled with blood, and piercing pain. "Dammit!" She cried aloud. The apartment she and her Dad lived in sat above his old saloon. It was beyond the need for repairs but as usual, her they was too busy to tend to any of them. What with it only being the two of them since her mother had died, there just wasn't time. Running a bar didn't lend itself room for anything else in their lives.

And now this.

Trudy wasn't ready to get out of the shower. There was no way she could face her ghost trapped within the empty walls of their frigid apartment. She did the next best thing and carefully sat down in the tub to apply pressure to the wound. A light pink tinged the white tub, but her fingers seemed to do a good enough job for the time being. The freezing water no doubt added to the slowed blood flow inside her cut.

When Trudy couldn't take the cold any longer, she stood up, turned off the spigot, opened the curtain and grabbed a nearby towel with a sigh. She got herself dressed and decided to go for a walk. 

As she sat on Diamond Beach a half hour later, bundled up to her neck in layers, she looked out at the ocean and starred into the pre-dawn space. The stones under her feet were slightly warmer than her heart. They were a welcome comfort. Trudy scooped some up to worry them absently in her hands.  

Later, as the sun rose on the horizon of water before her, Trudy thought about her one true love. "Oh, Tommy," she mourned at the windy, biting coast. "How am I going to raise our child alone?" She held her swollen abdomen with care and started to cry again.

A fog rolled into her heart and she choked. All of her emotions had drowned with Tommy when he died.

"I miss you so much, Tommy," Trudy cried. "I love you forever."