Indian Summer

Prologue

I sat on the couch closest to the fire curling my toes in the warmth. I watched as the newspapers flickered, withered, and then turned to ash by the flames.  I felt as if my heart was in that fire, burning with such intensity and passion then dying into nothingness with time.  I breathed in the smell of winter and chocked back the tears that were destined to dive down my cheeks.  I was in pain but this was nothing new, I had suffered from this fiery coal in my chest for almost a year.

He was gone and never coming back, I understood this from the moment I left the restaurant and said I was done. I would have given him everything in the world, my heart included. But there comes a time in a person’s life when they realize that when they say they are willing to sacrifice anything for someone, that means including their life. Now what I mean by this is I was willing to die for him, if that meant saving him, but I was not willing to give him my future to destroy. I knew we were heading down hill fast but could not stop this. I made the decision to be slightly selfish, if you must, and do something for my life.

Even though I had left him with my own free will, that did not mean I didn’t grieve.  It may seem silly to you, but I had never known that heart break actually physically hurt. That emptiness in your chest, the tightness of every breath you take, that feeling that you could break with every second passing. It has faded with time, but I get a scent of his cologne and it’s back tenfold. So I promised myself I wouldn’t become vulnerable again, I swore of all men till after college. By then I would know what I really wanted and (hopefully) wouldn’t be broken anymore.

That was so long ago now it seems. I am now 24, two years after graduating with a nursing degree and no signs of happiness. Every guy I met, everyone I was set up with seemed insignificant. I compared all to him, all the moments that we shared, and if I didn’t have it within a month I didn’t think we would ever have it.. I was never going to find a man, I was hell bent on focusing on my career and nothing was going to hurt me again.

When I had made this promise to my heart I had no way of seeing the future or seeing that I would meet Him. But that’s how fate works isn’t it? You finally get the one thing you’ve been searching for, the moment you stop.