Short Stories

Creative Writing - Gone

"I want you here with me."

Tonight there is a lavender sky, just like your favourite colour, a pastel purple so smooth you can't get enough of it; like the colour of your bag, splayed with so many pastel pins that meant everything to you. There's spouts of pink and blue, of the gentle yellow that echoed in your voice and the turquoise that was as bright as your smile.

As I walk these pretty streets, sheltered by your sky, I raise my eyes and hands to the clouds, wispy and stretched like your voice had been before you left. Yet like the clouds it was still cotton candy to me, sweet and fluffy, a treat I rarely received and adored when I finally did. I mark the lines on my hands, the wrinkles that your fingers traced and wrapped up in your own, squeezing them so carefully each time to keep them warm. To keep me close.

You held on for so long.

So, so, long.

It scared me when your hands no longer reached for mine, when your pinprick pressure from squeezing them became weak. Light taps like butterflies wings, so fragile that one touch could mark you immobilised. You wanted to let go of me, to let me go and fly from your restraints, restraints that were nothing but ties of ribbon and silk in my eyes.

You were a gift to me, wrapped in constant hugs and words that eased me so suddenly I could never quite speak after you. Your words were a poem but they read like a book, a never ending story of wisdom, of ups and downs that moved me as verse could, but enticed me like a novel.

But like a story we had to come to an end, and ours was sad and solemn and quiet like any other, but we knew that our lives had been loud, the journey we had taken to was worth this ending. This ending was our moment to cherish who we had become. If only I had known from the start, of how our nights under the cosmic skies were blessed by stardust, of how it first felt to my cautious heart when you finally smiled, really smiled at me, so kind, a warmth like a sunflower. I had bloomed in your sunlight and you had shone under it once more as I reflected it like the moon.

I passed our spot. The place where we would hide, the seat under the moon we escaped to when the noise in our heads and homes became overwhelming for us. In that space we existed only to each other. When the wind nipped our cheeks red, took bites at the tops of our noses, we simply laughed and warmed each other with words, with comforting gazes and gestures that made any cool breeze feel like the youthful gusts of spring. Our moments had begun there, the sweetness of your tongue when we kissed for the first time like white chocolate, so sweet that few favoured it, but a taste I craved because it had become my secret addiction. An addiction so tempting that I could barely resist when you teased my lips with your fingers and disappointed me with fluttering kisses to my cheek and forehead.

I miss the way you spoke of cartoons and romance. The way you got excited about realities that were beyond our own, but you believed could be ours. I miss hearing you gush and blush and fuss about it all, my dreamer. Though you dreamed and dreamed day and night, it was you who were always the subject of my own, a person so contagious my mind could never quite erase you. A virus that took hold of my heart and demanded my affection.

And your virus infected me, every inch of my soul littered by your kisses, your words and smiles, your eyes, those beautiful crystal coloured eyes that illuminated no matter the light we stood under.

That day I knew. When your tears finally fell from them, when you no longer hid from me, I knew. As I sat down beside you, my eyes scarlet from the state you were in, I loved you with my everything, I gave you my soul in those moments I looked into your eyes and watched them close.

As I wander our route, our nighttime escape, I wonder if you received it. Did you take the part of me that was yours? Because when I retrace our path I feel that you did, that you took the claim you made on my heart. It feels heavy and tight when I see the initials you sloppily sprayed on the dark side of the park, the cursive, the swirl, the shape that placed mine beside them.

When I pass our favourite store I remember the purse you always held as you'd walk up to the counter, always counting out the money beforehand. Seeing you step out the store after me, hands full of treats, but you could never quite carry them all. The store is quiet now and the air around me feels darker as I pass by, not making our stop.

I feel like I'm chasing you, the footsteps of your ghost imprinted into the ground that remain even now. In another life perhaps they would have been my ghostly footsteps, but in this one they were yours. Undoubtedly yours.

As I step back into my home, no longer ours but mine, my chest pangs like I'm drowning. I'm suffocating on my own tears as I remember your final words.

"It doesn't matter who lives, our love will be eternal, infinite and irreplaceable like every star in our galaxy. I want you to hold onto that, for the both of us okay?"

And I nod as I stumble through the door, wiping tears from my eyes as I dump my keys in the bowl on the side.

And through the pain I make my way to your spot on the sofa, wrap myself up in the blanket that held your scent and curl up into the empty space that was forever yours. I would always hold our love in my heart, hold the weight of it and carry it.

But my one desire is selfish. I didn't like carrying it alone. I couldn't take the strain.

"I wish you were here with me."