1933

It was 1933. I was young then: he was twenty two and I had a year less. I didn't know that loving someone could be the most painful thing in the world. I didn't know that the world is so, so cruel - I loved him so much that I had to let him go. My callowness didn't allow me to see that, that archaic lie of setting loved ones free was indeed just that - a lie. If you love someone, by God, keep them as close to you as you can, and never let them go. I can't imagine the day that I will stop loving him even though that I know that I cannot.

Our journeys intertwined as a repercussion of a peculiar interaction at a beach-side ice cream parlour. My dress had snagged in the joinery of the stool I sat upon, leaving me sprawled across the floor in a rather compromising position, yet with my double choc-chip intact. He, with his broad shoulders, consummately dark hair and cheeky smile, rescued me from my humiliation and offered me his arm to lift myself. That was the first time I saw his beautiful, russet eyes and likewise, the time I fell in love with them. We laughed and I thanked him, offering to pay for his cone that he was ordering. He denied my money in exchange for my time the following Friday. I blushed and he grinned and I accepted his offer without the faintest conception that I was about to step out of my journey and come tumbling, flailing wildly, into his.

When my excitement had evolved into somersaulting butterflies at the arrival of our meeting, he took me to the lake, a breath away from our homes, one that I had made many a trip to prior. There, I was surprised by a double choc-chip that he had prepared and the last salvageable lamp that he could find at his home. He told me that that's what he'd seen me enjoy during our previous encounter. That was the first time that I saw his passion and additionally, the time that I wanted to be his passion. We talked for hours, laughing, joking; feeling infinite. Veritably, the salvaged lamp could be salvaged no more and had dwindled down to nothing but a flicker before our evening had reached its omega. I left him with my sincere gratification and a kiss on the cheek before I returned home, hoping to receive a telephone call from my suitor.

It was a day, no less; before I was making arrangements to meet with him again. Subsequent to that, we met again, and again, until we were together most days. By this time, my affection for him was deeper than any connection I thought conceivable. He consumed my thoughts, my every existence. With him, I felt completely and utterly at peace. He made me feel like I could climb mountains, swim across oceans and fly high above the clouds as long as he was by my side, holding my hand through the whole thing.

Despite his perfection in my eyes, my love had a damning downfall in the eyes of the world; he was a farmer's son. In comparison to my high society family's lifestyle of perpetual chauffeurs, ministered home life and gourmet meals, he was nothing. My mere talking to him would have been assuredly forbidden, should my Mother have known about my relationship. She wished me to marry into a respected family with a son that had could acquire $7000 annually in spite of the great depression; the rich married the rich and the poor married the poor.

An entire year I spent with him, falling more in love with him every day. I dreamt that my Mother would delve far into her aura and finally find the compassion that I wished she had, giving her blessing for him and I to marry, but my prayers came to no avail. I thought it would be less painful to dissociate myself from him than to be denied our right to love. I couldn't - instead, I became engaged.

Love has a distinguished way of blinding you from reality; I found myself victim to this. Defying my family seemed suddenly undaunting and he agreed. Therefore, we anticipated informing our families of our engagement at an event that was held annually. We rendezvoused there so as not to draw unnecessary excess attention to ourselves.

Half an hour in and we had barely said three words to each other. At each attempt, the other would be swept away to meet an unacquainted relative or a close associate. I leant against the promenade, admiring the way he interacts with people of all classes with graceful ease. Occasionally, he would shoot that cheeky smile at me that I loved so dearly. He was everything I wanted; everything I needed. A man in ill fitting attire with a slick brow approached him, speaking with hushed tones. Soon afterwards, he took my hand, without a care that everyone could see, and lead me to the centre of the room where I rested my head on his shoulder and my arms around his neck. His hair brushed mine as we swayed, all eyes on us but without exerting ourselves over them. He was all I could see.

I felt him pull away from me but keep his hand in mine. His brow furrowed and my heart stopped. He told me that someone had seen us together and informed his father. My mother was soon invested into our relationship's demise, willing to lose her daughter in order to keep her social status. His voice became almost inaudible now. He told me that my mother had paid for his father to leave the village - the county, and to take my love with him.

I couldn't breathe.

He kissed me lightly on the head, tears threatening to fall, and whispered he loved me, no matter where he was. If we couldn't be together physically, then our hearts would remain coveted for all eternities. He would always be with me. My tears fell freely, in great torrents, but I still managed to tell him that I loved him and would see him soon. With only our bittersweet goodbye to hold onto, his hand slowly slipped out of mine as he returned to his father, exiting the hall with his head hung to the ground.

I was left alone, crippled by sadness, with only a debilitating realisation: he took my love with him when he left that night.

*

I adopted numbness after that. My mother married me off to a kind gentleman, of a respectable family, that worshiped the ground I walked on - but I didn't love him; he wasn't my love. We had two children, two little boys, who cleared some of the storm clouds that obscured my vision but there was always a darkness that I could see. My husband died when he was the ripe age of eighty two, leaving me, his scintillating widow, to rot in my own despair. My children left home at eighteen, my grand children only visit at the weekends and now I'm dying. The doctors says its lung cancer, stage four, but the excruciating pain in my chest killed me a long time ago; I died when he walked out of that door. I'm waiting patiently for it to take me, finally relieve me of my sadness. I'm not scared - I don't want to be in pain anymore.

I never saw him again. I don't know what happened to him and his cheeky smile. I hope that he married someone that he loved and I hope that he had the beautiful family that he always talked about. I hope that he got that job that he wanted and that he was never told that he had no potential. I hope that he moved on and that he's found the unfathomable happiness that he so deserved. I hope to meet him in heaven one day soon but for this moment, know that I never stopped loving you; you were always in my heart, just like you said.