Set Me Free

"Goodbye Daniel."

"When you love someone, it's never over, you move on, because you have to, but you bring him in your heart."

I couldn't believe he was here.

Of all the people I could run into here, of all the people that could see me in this state, it had to be him.

I was embarrassed to let him see me this way, drunk and crying in the middle of a club. However, I couldn't stop myself from showing him how happy I was to see him.

I never thought I would see him again; I didn't know if he was going to be okay. But here he is, sitting before me, making jokes and being Daniel.

He didn't look different, just happier. When he smiled, it now reached his eyes, when he laughed it sounded genuine. Freedom suited him, it was nice to see him without the shackles.

"I've missed you too Elizabeth, more than you can understand," he whispers to me, hugging me tighter. I happily let him, loving the feeling of being in his arms once again. Nothing's changed, he still feels warm and safe, like he can protect me from anything.

The only thing I need protecting from now is myself.

"Can we get out of here?" I ask, pulling away gently and setting my beer on the nearest table. I suddenly didn't feel like drinking anymore. "Please?"

He simply nods in response and takes my hand to help me stand. I'm still a little unstable on my feet, an aftermath of the amount of alcohol I've had this evening. However, seeing Daniel again has seemed to sober me up, I don't feel as drunk as I once did.

"Where do you want to go?" he asks once we are out of the club. It feels nice to be out of there, in the fresh air, in the tranquillity.

"Let's go for a walk," I tell him, and start making my way down the street. He quickly follows suit.

"So," I start after a couple of minutes of silence, "how have you been?"

"I've been good," he tells me, "I've found somewhere to live, now it's about figuring this all out again. I'm trying to be a normal twenty-two-year-old again, but it's proving to be a lot harder than I first thought."

I knew exactly how he felt.

For the last couple of weeks, I had been desperately trying to return to normal as well, trying to put the actions of the past behind me. I thought it would be easy, I believed all I had to do was walk back into the life I had left and suddenly everything would be okay again. I'm only just figuring out that I'm going to have to work at it.

"Yeah, me too. Maybe it's impossible for us to be normal twenty-two-year olds. Maybe were doomed now to be different."

"You know," Daniel tells me, "different isn't always bad. We may no longer be normal, but it doesn't mean we're strange. It just means we're stronger, wiser and slightly more damaged than the average person. I don't personally think that makes us freaks."

I smile gently at him, taking in all that he said. Maybe we weren't freaks, maybe we weren't strange, maybe we were just a little different. Not many people have been through what we have and lived to tell the tale, but we have. If anything, I think that may just make us extraordinary.

"Yeah you're right. If anything I'm proud of us. Look at us, out here in the real world, stronger than ever!" I say, fist pumping the air in excitement. Maybe I was still a little more drunk than I thought.

Luckily, Daniel just laughs it off much to my relief.

"Have you spoken to your father?" Daniel asks me. This was a question I wasn't fully ready to answer. Since I've been back, I have been thinking about visiting my father a lot, yet I never find the courage to do it. This was the man that basically put me behind bars, he was the one responsible for everything I had suffered through. Yet, he was also the one who had helped set me free, the one who sacrificed himself so that I could live. This was a debate I kept having in my head, the pros and cons I would weigh against each other each time. The cons always won.

"Haven't seen him. Every time I think I'm ready something stops me from going to the prison. I just don't think I can face the man who made me suffer like that yet, even if he is my father," I confess. Daniel was the first person I had told any of this to, the only person I felt like I could. He would understand better than anyone, his father was worse than mine. "How about you? Have you seen yours?"

He doesn't reply for a moment, just looks ahead of us, deep in thought. I want to take the question back as see him wear the face he wore when I first asked him a difficult question while playing cards. That face can make me want to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness.

"I can't really," he finally speaks, "I'm trying to not let anyone know that I was there, they may think I was involved somehow. If I step forward as his son, well they'll be a lot more questions that I would really rather not answer. Besides, I don't think I would be ready to see him either."

This is probably one of the things I had missed most about being with Daniel, having someone around who knows exactly what you are going through. Maybe I didn't need therapy, maybe I just needed to have Daniel around.

I had convinced myself that seeing him would only make me remember the past, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe having Daniel around would help me overcome it.

"I promised myself I would stay away." I look at Daniel as he says this, not quite believing it. He didn't want to see me? "I need to give you space to move on Elizabeth, a chance to forget everything and having me around would only remind you of it all."

I want to tell him that he's wrong, that I was wrong. Having him here is helping, I feel safer with him next to me. It was like I had been drowning for the last couple of weeks and I have finally been able to come up for air. Daniel has managed to make me feel like me, to feel like the Elizabeth I used to like. I wanted her to stick around.

"So this is the last time you're going to see me." He finally says, stopping in the middle of the street and taking my hand gently in his. He strokes the back of it with his thumb as he stares deep into my eyes, so deep I believe he is reading my thoughts. "You need to be free Elizabeth; I want you to be free. You are going to do such amazing things one day and I don't want to constantly be serving as a reminder of a dark time in your life. I wish things were different, I wish we had met under different circumstances, but maybe this just wasn't meant to be. We saved each other, helped each other survive, but maybe now it's time to let each other go. I meant it when I said I loved you and I still do. You will forever be my first love Elizabeth and I hope one day I will be able to look back and remember you fondly without the other memories darkening the edges. Please," he leans in closely and kisses me gently on the cheek, "be happy. Live and embrace each day with open arms. Go and do all those things you always dreamed of doing and please Elizabeth, don't be afraid anymore."

I feel unshed tears fill my eyes, pushing to spill over. I fight against them. I didn't want to cry anymore, I didn't want the last image Daniel would see of me to be tear stained and sobbing. I wanted him to remember me as I was now, happy in his company. I wanted that to be the image he held onto.

"I love you Daniel," I tell him, gripping onto his hand tighter. "You saved me, more than I could ever wished to be saved. Before all of this, I was walking around in a daze, believing I had my whole to achieve the things I wanted to. Now I see that time is just an illusion, you can never be sure exactly when your time is up, so I need to make the most of it now. You do too. Maybe one day I won't look back at this as the experience that captured me, maybe I'll be able to look at it as the one that set me free," I smile sadly, accepting that this would be the last time I would be able to talk to him, to talk to someone that truly understood me. "Please Daniel, don't forget about me. I know you will live in my memories forever, the white knight in the sea of darkness. I don't want you to look back at the experience we went through and only remember the bad, please look back and remember the good."

He leans in close once I finish and for a second I believe he is going to kiss me on the cheek once again. It's then that I realise his lips have another destination in mind.

His lips capture mine in a soft yet passionate embrace. I know as it is happening that this is a goodbye kiss, something sweet to remember each other by.

"Goodbye Elizabeth," he whispers as our lips part and he walks away into the night. For a moment I'm scared, for a moment I believe he has left me alone on the middle of the street. It's then that I look up and realise I am right outside my front door. I was so caught up in Daniel, so caught up in our goodbye that I didn't even realise I had made it home.

"Goodbye Daniel."