Summer

Heartbreak and Golden Eyes

Heartbreak is an experience that each and every person in this world must go through. If you never experience such an experience, then you are said to be lucky. But between you and me, there aren’t very many lucky people in this world. Zinnia had thought that she could be one of the lucky ones. As long as she had Storm and Alaric, she would be fine. Alas, it was not to be.

By the time she managed to lift her head from her pillow, the sun was high in the sky. Squinting, she struggled to remember why she was still in bed. Slowly her mind cleared, and it all came rushing back. Coming home to find that Storm was gone. Yelling at Alaric, while he avoided her gaze. Running to his room to find it empty – abandoned. “You didn’t even leave me a note,” she thought, accusingly. They may have had their disagreements, they may have had their quarrels, but they were best friends. And best friends didn’t leave wordlessly.

“You’re dead once I find you. Do you hear me Storm? You’re toast!” she screamed into her pillow. If he comes back, her conscience whispered. She pushed that thought to the back of her head. He was coming back. He wouldn’t leave her like this. He just couldn’t.

I should just give up on him, she thought. But she couldn’t. No matter what, Storm would always be the most important to her. It didn’t matter where he was. The bond they had wasn’t one to be severed by distance. He would come back to her. And if he didn’t she would personally go find him, even if it was just to give him a piece of her mind.

For days, she waited.

And waited.

And then waited some more.

She waited for him to come back. She waited for her life to go back to normal. For a life without Storm was alien – unfamiliar. In her mind she rehearsed a dozen things to do and say when he came back. At first she would be angry. Then, when he begged and pleaded and apologized a dozen times, she would relent, and everything would go back to normal.

But for now, she was tired of waiting. Tired of sitting around and crying. This person wasn’t her. The true Zinnia was a tall righteous warrior – the only female in the district who could wield a sword as well as she could a scalpel. She was a healer. And a marvelous one at that. There was many a person who owed their life to her. It was time for her to come back to earth. Heartbreak wasn’t a serious wound. It would heal over time.

She hoisted herself out of bed to brush and plait her tangle of golden tresses. Donning her grey work dress and taking an apple from the pile on the kitchen table, she grabbed her bag and ran out the door. She definitely couldn’t afford to be late today.

To this day, it still amused her how her occupation and her hobby were so different. Growing up, swordplay had been a big part of her life – and it still was. After all, her prized possession was the slender, three point blade – a masterpiece carved by the master, Alaric, himself. However, as she got older, she found that she had a passion for healing, which, of course was quite strange for one so skilled with the sword. Alaric had been amused, and Storm had been happy. After all, it was quite rare for a swordsman to have a healer as a best friend and housemate.

There was many a time when she would come home after a long day’s work at the hospital, only to find more gashes for her to suture. She would sigh and feign annoyance, but really, it was in those moments that she found herself to be happiest. They would sit, just the two of them at the kitchen table and talk about nothing, and everything. To Zinnia, all of the wounds she received from watching people suffer would be healed just by listening to Storm’s melodic voice tell her that everything would work out in the end. And now, when she most needed to hear that, he was gone. In fact, he was the one causing her all of this misery.

She nodded off all the sympathetic looks that came her way as she walked to the hospital. There wasn’t a person in town who didn’t know about Zinnia and Storm’s relationship. After all, they had only been best friends since she was born. She wasn’t one to accept others’ pity. That was not how she’d been raised, and she wasn’t about to start now. So what if her life’s companion had mysteriously deserted her one day. Storm was Zinnia’s other half, but he didn’t define her as a person.

She would be strong, for she was Zinnia.

Not some next door pansy.

But it was oh, so hard to maintain this resolve when she walked into the flesh wounds ward at the hospital. After days of not coming to work, the sight of all the suffering was almost alien to her. Many people had been hurting, because of her weakness and selfishness. Looking around at all the pain shocked her back to earth. There was work to be done.

Methodically, precisely, she sutured wounds, applied medicine, and directed her trainees. It was nice. Working with her hands again gave her something to take her mind off of her own pain. Kind of like how morphine was given to patients to momentarily dull their pain. It was evening by the time she got to her last patient for the day – a male.

A very handsome male, I may add.

So handsome, that even Zinnia, immune to all male charms found herself blushing.

She couldn’t help but admire the cut of his face, the silky blonde curls that framed his well defined features, as she sutured the wound along his forehead. Like with all patients, she disinfected an area on his arm to inject the IV drip.

And then she felt it.

It was no ordinary thing.

The sparks crawled up her spine.

The feeling was alien.

But not unpleasant.

He must have felt it too, for he opened eyes, and asked her directly, in a husky, masculine voice, “Did you feel that?” Startled, all Zinnia could do was shake her head.

Weakly, he raised his hand to hers. Gripping her hand, he looked at her directly, he whispered, “Are you sure?”

“I – “, Zinnia began, but it was no use. He had already fallen asleep.

As Zinnia walked out of the hospital that day, she couldn’t help but think “His eyes were gold.”