Entwined

Letting go

It was crack of the dawn. I was making way into the train station. I stood at the threshold, where the coarse asphalt of the parking lot gave way to a muddled lot full of weeds. I stumbled into a sloping embankment, when suddenly a scene from the past came back to me, a rush of overpowering memories that nearly knocked my pace. I remembered sitting with her, the two of us there under circumstances too improbable to imagine, even if was just a dream that seems so true. I remembered everything perfectly — that girl was Aisleen, the girl I had been dreaming about in my childhood. She was Aisleen all along, that rust colored hair; no it was brown or as I prefer a caramel colored and a pair of hazel eyes. I had cherished all those times I dreamt of her although it changes every now and then. But it all had her. All of it almost impossible to believe. No, definitely impossible to believe.

It was just like every other profound mystery in life, I couldn't help thinking as I ran harder, faster. Like Aisleen parting me now, after everything they had been through to be together.

I reached a clearing and spotted two peach trees which grown together bowing and made an outline of heart. I took one look at the shuddering light at the base of the clearing and started racing toward it. I hurtled down. I didn't care that the sharp, twisting limbs of the live oak trees scratched my arms and face as I ran, or that clumps of thick-rooted weeds tripped up my feet. I had to get down there.

I wouldn’t stop until I found her, a part of me believes her it is just that their past, those unfathomable dreams. Fate that brought us together.

Aisleen.

One look at her distant, dark profile, so stunning and stately, told me that everything Aisleen had veiled at— even the one big thing I’d figured out on my own—everything was true.

Aisleen spied on me as I walk towards her.

“I’m tied by a shackle that is sixteen years long. No matter how much time goes by, I can’t be freed from this sickness. The furthest my hand can reach is few hours from then. That is why I decided that I’d leave you after this… I thought I’d disappear quietly without leaving behind any memories. But I was happy, very happy. I love you. But since I’m like this, I don’t want you to disappear from my heart. I’d rather disappear in your heart. You’d brought me out of that secluded place where I was marooned. Before then I had been doing nothing but looking up in the sky. I always felt like crying. I always looked up in the sky because I felt like my tears were going to start. You hugged and loved me, cried and suffered because of me. If you stay with me, I believe you’ll keep suffering from painful, memories. I don’t want that. Even I have a way to prevent you from being unhappy. Even though I shouldn’t be able to do anything, I’ve found a way.” She said not even looking in my direction.

“I don’t want to!”

 “I’ve wrote every memory about you, our first meeting, everything about you and me is in this journal, our memories that every night I spent reading to keep up with my memory span so that the next day I can grab a hold of my yesterdays me. I am a different person every day.  I am not the same girl that loved you ever since we met for every day I am not the same Aisleen you knew. I am scared of myself, what if the time comes that I can’t keep up with you and your memory of me which I can’t even remember. I can hardly put all the memory of yesterday into one piece, they are all almost impossible.”

“You are you! You are Aisleen nevertheless of your case, every day you are the one I love. Stop thinking that way and risk to lose me. You are the one and only Aisleen Rowe. The woman I loved and dreamt of. I remembered all of it. It was when my mom left with another man – your dad - and I was completely abandoned by my dad, I often snuck of the house just to go here and that’s when I met you, in my dreams. It was you whom I cherished in those dreams I always have this dream about a girl, my only friend, the one that kept me company on behalf of my mother. But I had never seen her face but when I saw your scar at the back of your left shoulder always wanted to stay in that subconscious realm just to be with you. My world is you. You said to me that you are afraid of being forgotten and not of disappearing, so why would choose me to forgot you and disappear! I know that I had been keeping all what I knew from the start but I am sorry Aisleen. I just don’t want them to add on your suffering…”

“Please praise me.” Her tears started to well up in her eyes.

“I love you. How can I praise you for something stupid like that?”

“Please smile”

“I don’t want to!”

“Let’s part with your usual smile.”

“I don’t want to. My mom left me with your dad long before you had that accident while my dad had been ceased from work by your own father. Can you recall that he had an assistant before, which was my dad? My family was happy and contented until it was ruined by your father.  My father was the one who attacked you that night. At first I didn’t believed what I learned about it but when my love for you keeps on growing I wanted them to stay hidden and for you not to know them. I’m scared that you would start to hate me.”

“Don’t worry Will, I will not forsake what I feel for you. I would have to thank your father for trying to end my life but he failed. He would’ve made sure I died because he just made me more miserable… but it changed when... I met you.”

“I’m really sorry, please don’t leave me!”

“I learned what loneliness is that made me understand happiness, so I’ve decided to let you go.” She said tearing up the pages of her journal and threw it in the fire. I ran to stop her, but it is too late. The pages were starting to lit by the fire. I forced my hand into the fire just to save the memories they had. His hands ached tremendously from the burn. I managed to save few pages of her torn journal.

Aisleen ran to me and tried to drag my hands away from the fire. “Stop it! Stop it, please” She stood up and walked away. “I’m sorry, good bye.”

“Aisleen! . . . This is…”

She was still walking further away. “That is me, the diary from the day I met you until today. With that, the ‘I’ that knew about you has disappeared. With that, I won’t remember you anymore. With that, we’ve really part with each other.”