Memory of Her

Prologue

           

TEN!

I stared out into the chilly winter New York night as I hugged my overpriced mink coat. The sky is painted with different hues of pink, a warning to the people down below that a blanket of white was in the near future. It may have been the alcohol talking or the energy from the sea of individuals who were crowded together like a school of fish on the streets below me, but I needed to feel the snow on my skin. I wanted to teleport myself away from a party that had little interest to me. This roof had been my only haven.

            NINE!

I stepped up onto the edge of the building and clutched the railing with one hand as my other hand kept my seventh...or eighth glass of champagne close. Hundreds of "average" people had been huddled close to one another in their best outfits hidden under their large winter coats, inexpensive hand weaved hats and scarves, as they tried to stay warm waiting for the ending of the year. Their shimmery party store hats seemed to shine brighter than the continuously lit Time Square itself.

"What am I doing here," I whispered letting my crystal champagne glass dangle over the railing wanting to introduce the average people to it as I felt a feeling of loneliness pass over me.

            EIGHT!

A hand lightly fell onto my hand, taking the champagne glass away. Another hand placed onto my shoulder. It was a familiar, strong touch that I had remembered feeling better than I could remember my name. It had been the last hand I had expected to feel tonight, but it had also been the only one I wanted.

            SEVEN!

I turned slowly and our eyes instantly locked. A small smile crept across my lips like it always had when I had seen those deep, dark brown eyes. He matched my smile with his perfect pearly white teeth, shining, which told me that that smile had only been there to smile for me. His hand moved from my shoulder to my waist effortlessly as he pulled me away from the edge of the roof.

            SIX!

Time had ceased to exist when he had been around me, and now it had been no different. The sound of my heart racing echoed in my ears, and we stared at one another. The loud roars from cheers and music from the party only a few yards away and the people on the streets below had gone completely silent. The party. The Square. My mind. Absolute silence.

FIVE!

He tucked loose strands of my hair behind my ear, leaving a fiery path across my cheek. I could feel his pulse through his wrist, as it laid against my cheek. We stood there, stuck in time, lost in one another's eyes. As if he had been staring into the eyes of a painting he never knew was missing his entire life. He was trapped because he needed it to go on.

            FOUR!

His face shifted from soft and relieved to hard and troubled. The entire weight of the universe had been lying behind his perfect eyes. I could feel every thought racing through his head as our smiles slowly left our faces.

THREE!

I knew why he was on this rooftop with me. Why he had been at a party filled with people he didn't know, uninvited and unannounced. We were standing on a roof that was in the middle of Time Square on New Year's Eve. I knew exactly why he had traveled from East 44th Street in Midtown on the craziest night in New York, and by foot, to be here. Tonight would be the last time he would be able to make peace with everything before it was too late.

TWO!

He pulled me into him without losing my gaze as if he had planned to whisper every single thought that had crossed his mind from the second he had met me.

"Don't marry him," he exhaled as if the weight of the universe had finally left his lips.

ONE!

A single snowflake kissed my lips as he whispered once more, "Please."