i was eighteen when he came into my life. there had been others

before him, though i swore to my mother he was different.

i promised my best friends that there was he was unlike any other

guy i'd met, i thought he was good. i told him my dreams and fears

and secrets and everything that makes up the person that i am.

he knew how afraid i was of being hurt, of being abondoned like

i had before. and still, he did to me everything he promised he would'nt.

i woke up one morning, alone with out a goodbye and reason behind

it. that was the first day that i had to live without a heart inside

by body. it was the type of heartbreak that made it comepletely unable

to breathe. and this followed for the next eight months. i'd stay

awake until two am, overthinking about how i wasnt enough and

what i could have done better to want him to stay. when i went

on with my days, something as little as glancing at a baskteball would

remind me of him, taking my breath away for the next few seconds.

love songs would be skipped immediately unless i was alone and

able to cry along to them. dreams of him were unbearable, waking

up to the realization that it was no where near reality made the pain

resurface all over again. its the type of pain that makes a person

terrified to ever fall in love again because heartache like that should

only be felt once in ones lifetime.

I remember.

I had been chasing after you for a few years when one day I found out you were dating someone else.

You never told me that as I pressed chaste kisses to your temple. Or as I tangled our fingers together. You never told me even as your presence alone demanded my attention. When I was told that you were in a relationship with someone else, I felt betrayed and hurt.

However, instead of chasing after you, I stopped as you raced away from me. I no longer tried to keep up.

Looking back on it, I can't tell if I acted selfishly, stopping all advances like I did. I wonder if I should've tried talking to you. Or if you'd tell me you weren't interested.

If I could change anything about those few years, it would be the fact that you shut me down before I grew attached to you.

"If you ever see her, bring this to her, will you?" The boy bends down, passing a rose to the kitten, rubbing its head affectionately as it bites the dainty stem of the rose. The kitten manages a "mew" in return, liking the feel of the boy's fingers that ruffle its wet fur.

A faint smile passes over the boy's tired face, glistening the beautiful features of a young man, the sadness inside those dark and downcast eyes somehow making him seem even more alone. Under an umbrella, talking to a cat which held a rose between its teeth, the scene goes unnoticed by the passers-by.

Every raindrop appears to be telling a different story. Every breeze engulfs him in the cold of the bitter-sweet memories. The kitten's eyes shine a brilliant gold, stark against the black fur, and paws at the boy's knees in comfort. The boy knows that the cat understands, and a strange feeling of warmth passes over him, as he stands back up and thinks about how absurd it is to be talking to a cat in the middle of a street.

The kitten gazes up at the boy for one last time, and seemingly determined, takes off with its paws pattering the wet ground, and the boy amused, could not suppress his gentle smile. It was probably off to present it proudly to its mother. He watches as the cat bounds down the street.

Turning to leave, he suddenly sees the kitten stop abruptly, and he looks back curiously. The kitten had sat down, its tail curled, the rose still held in its mouth, in front of a girl.

~~

The girl crouches down slowly, and although surprised, gently takes the flower in her delicate hand, her umbrella forgotten, the rain drenching her in seconds.

Holding the rose, she touches the petals lightly and a wave of nostalgia hits her. The thorns on the rose were removed, like what he did every time he gifted her with a rose. She’s well aware of the tears sliding down her cheeks, but does nothing to stop them. Because of the pouring rain, no one can see that she’s alone and in pain.

But when she looks up from the kitten, their eyes meet. In that fraction of a second, they both see the person in their memories, the one in their every night's dreams. His name forms on her lips, but she doesn’t utter it. She’s afraid that if she does, she will never be able to forget the things from her past - the person from her past.

So she turns her back to him and takes a step forward - a step away from her regrets. She could have walked away. She could have walked away and never turned back. But she had to look. Had to look again to see if he’s still there.

But when she does, she finds that he’s already gone.

~~

She turns away from him, the rose still held loosely in her hand. The crack of his heart seems to be audible only to him, because the people on the streets brush past him, unaware of his pain, his hurt, his sorrow. She had turned away. She had seen him, had recognised him, but turned away.

His brain forces his body to move - to move away from the girl he loved so fiercely. He’s a man who listened to his head through and through. And right now, his brain is telling him that she’s done with him - that she’s moved on. But for the first time in forever, he wanted to listen to his heart - to trust his heart. Because deep down, he knows she still cares from the way her eyes lingered on him. Although, it’s too late now. He’s already crossed the street.

And when he looks back towards the crossing, she’s already gone.

I still remember the day as if it was yesterday, even though it was five thousand three hundred seventy six days ago. I had been to a doctor's appointment that morning before going to work, it was a Wednesday, no significance to it that I could think about that day. The morning was a typical spring morning, warm but damp with a light cloudy morning and a light mist filling the air. Leaving the doctors office, my mind was numb driving, I passed a familiar rode that I traveled frequently and my gut told me to go that way. I ignored it and just kept going, I was already late for work and had no time to dilly dally around.

I arrived at work and made haste getting started, at the time I was working in construction as commercial and residential painter. The home I was working in had a deadline for the weekend, so I had to get moving quick, the couple hours being late that morning only put me behind.

My radio was blaring and I was rolling the paint up and down the wall, my phone had been ringing but I didn't hear it. Soon I was brought out of my concentration and daydreaming with the music by a friend yelling at me from the doorway. I turned and immediately could tell something was wrong, first of all he shouldn't have been there, he was on another job across town and second his eyes were red from tears and his skin as white as a ghost. I quickly turned my radio down and checked my phone to see the time and realized I had missed about fifty calls and a hundred text messages. Frowning I looked up to my friend and his next words to me left me sobbing in the middle of the floor, in that moment my world stopped turning and my heart was ripped from my chest, only to pause the pain for a moment and it to start all over again.

Years before that a young girl had befriended me, she would soon become more than a friend, she was my sister, my children's aunt, my moms child, there was not a memory from the day I met her, until that day that she was not in it. She was the one that never judged me, would stand up to me when I was in the wrong, had been my shoulder to cry on, and the cheerleader I needed in my corner when I needed the boost or courage to carry on.

The news delivered in that second was that she was gone. Just like that she was gone and I would never see her again. I screamed and cried, it couldn't be true, I grabbed my keys and left out of there like it was on fire, once I arrived home I was again reassured that she was gone. It was five days after her twentieth birthday, April 26, to be exact, and after that day, my life would never be the same. She had been to the barn to take care of her horses that morning, the funny thing about it was, that the road I had passed that morning on my way to work was the same road that her barn was on, and the time that I passed it was the same time that she had arrived at the barn. The police said that when she entered the barn her boyfriend was sitting in the hallway with a shotgun. He turned the gun on her and killed her where she stood and then turned the gun on himself also taking his life.

I think about her daily, she would have been thirty-five this year and I wonder where she would be, would she be married, would she have kids of her own. Life is never fair, we are never promised the next moment, words that I have grown to live by, Live life to the fullest in the moment, for the next is never promised.

Thank you for taking time to read. This is the first time I have ever sat down to write about that day. I think about her daily and she is always in my heart, my memories live on of her and my life was ultimitely changed for the good when she entered it.