Water. That's what I always think of when I think of her. Cannon Creek, Lake Erie, the Atlantic, the Pacific, nothing too specific.
Water can be anything you need, want, fear, love, hate. It can be clear, it can be murky. It can be warm, cold, swallow, deep. All these things are what water naturally is.
In my memory, our love is an ocean. Oh, yes. We were in love. I'm not so hopelessly romantic that I would ever be involved in unreciprocated love. No, no. We were in love, and it was the ocean.
She swam in the clear blue warm and it was wonderful, until I brought in the horrors. Me? I swam desperately into the depths. I went to those places that we were never meant to be. I found those things that live so deep that we can't fathom life existing in such cold and dark places. I found the things that are so terrible we tell ourselves, we prove to each other scientifically, can not exist. But they're there, and I swam with them. I lived with them. And how can you ever love those things? How can you ever make someone else love those things?
But still, we were together, so I brought those things along. I brought those things to the clear blue. I brought those things into the warmth. Lovecraft spent his life trying to explain what those things will do. They'll never kill you.
But you lose everything. They take your sanity.