Prism of Tears
Before I knew it, I could feel wet droplets silently cascading from those iridescent wells that I had grown to love. She started crying as the sadness finally consumed her and there was nothing I could do to stop the tears from rolling down her beautiful face. We had tried to fight these melancholy feelings for some time now, and they finally won. She wept for over an hour and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I felt horrid as I held her close, trying desperately to reassure and comfort her.
We sat there on the couch huddled together in the early morning sunshine that peeked through the bay window. She had stopped crying by then, her legs laying on top of mine, with her head against my chest and arms wrapped around my neck. I held her, arms wrapped around her lithe waist, never wishing to let her go, but knew that it was time.
With one last thorough check of the house, her family filed outside and readied the car for travel. We stood there, quiet and anxious. She turned toward me and started to sniffle again. Gathering her up in my arms, I hugged her tight, as if my physical strength could somehow carry her emotional burden for the rest of eternity.
“I’ll never say good-bye. This is simply a ’see you later’, ok? We’ll talk and write each other letters. Things will be ok, I promise.”
She looked up at me and nodded silently, tears streaming down her face once more. Grabbing a handkerchief out of my pocket, I dabbed her eyes and slowly wiped up the tears glistening on her cheeks. I went to put the handkerchief back into my pocket, but she stopped me by holding my hand in hers.
“May I keep it, please? I have lots of things of our time together, but I’d like to keep something from our last day together. And here, keep this to remember me too.”
She let go of me and unhooked a thin silver necklace from around her neck and slipped it around my own. Hanging from the thin silver chain was a small silver heart. It was the same necklace that I saw around her neck the very first time I laid eyes on her. She stepped back and tilted her head to critique how it looked. She giggled and shook her head.
“No, that doesn’t look like you at all.”
I stuck out my tongue at her and smirked.
“Yeah, I suppose it doesn’t. You were always the much prettier one.”
I walked her to the car, opened her door and helped her get seated. I checked to see if her arm and leg were in the way, then closed the door. I bid her parents and sister farewell and stepped back out of the car’s path. It started up and the gears engaged, slowly rolling the car back out of the driveway. Turning left, the car seemed to glide down the street; from this life and into the next.
Before she could get out of earshot, she looked out of the window back at me, waving and shouted, “I’ll call you! I promise I will!” I smiled, shouting back, “And I’ll call you too!” I waved to the retreating car that was slowly putting more and more distance between my heart and my other half.
A light early-fall breeze blew through my hair, sending a shiver down my spine and a wistful longing through my heart. A single tear slid out of the corner of my right eye and rolled down the contours of my cheek. Sniffling loudly and wiping it away, I turned and walked slowly home; all the while lightly tugging at the chain around my neck.
For some reason, I had a sinking feeling that this chapter of my life was effectively over.
