The Silver Blade

Him

All I had to do is turn around. The movement of my feet to change direction. All it takes. I avoided his face. His eyes, the dull spark that is there as he looked at me with the hope that I was still the same person he knew when we were kids. The small curve of his lips around the edges as he smiles only to realize I'm not the person he was looking for. I avoided the way his hair falls over his face, hiding just enough that he looks isolated from the world, as if he is trying to get away. Instead I stared at his black leather jacket, unzipped to reveal a partly torn dark blue denim shirt, with words so faded I couldn't read them.
"Sorry," I heard him murmur quietly, "I thought you were someone else." As he moved to go around me, a million thoughts went through my head. Would he be better off without me? Should I tell him it's me? Am I really that different? I stared at the cold concrete, cracked from it's years of rain pounding against it. I felt the slight gust of wind that brushed the skin of my cheek as he passed, every memory I had of him forcing me to hesitate. Is it for the better that I let him go? Like I did all those years ago? And I remembered, the slight moment I had seen of his eyes, only a moment ago. How empty they looked. And how they used to be filled with so much light. In that moment I turned around, almost tripping on my own feet in my haste.

"Wait!" I had yelled, even though he was only a few steps away from me. I hesitated yet again. I was different then, Im different now, would he still except me? Should he? I dared to look him in the eyes, and saw the light buried deep within, covered in all the years between then and now, drowned in the endless days and nights of regret, blaming himself for everything that went wrong. That spark that used to be there when we were kids, only a glimmer of shine when the sun graces a window with it's warmth, there one moment, so small a moment, that any movement will scare it off. I looked into his eyes and saw all the regret I never had since I left, as if all the regret I should have had was washed through me and into him. I didn't look away, away from those eyes who had always looked at me as someone special, the way I should have looked at him, then maybe I would have never left.

I couldn't muster the courage to tell him I'm here, that I was back. To shout out that all his searching wasn't for nothing, that he can rest now, take a break from this hopelessness he has fallen into. I could barely manage just one word. "Who?" My voice shakey, for never having need of it since I left. My heart on the edge of falling, falling into the bottomless pit I created when I left, sending everyone I had ever cared about spiraling into the dark abyss, while I stayed free, away from all the ropes that bind me to the earth.

He looked down, avoiding my gaze as I asked who he was looking for. Several emotions danced across his face. Misery, for the endless times he had gone outside, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a determination to find the one he had lost, only to come back home at the end of the day, with nothing but empty hands and a shattered heart, it's pieces getting smaller and smaller. Fortunate to have the memories going untouched as the days go by, so he can remember all the wonderful times he had as a child, with his best friend, the one he knew was special, so he had to protect her, with all his might. Weary, of all the nights staying up, gazing on the starry night, like he had done with his best friend as kids, hoping, wishing she would come home, to her family, to her friends, to him. Troubled, for thinking that a stranger could even know her when she left so long ago, and hoping they might have something on where she is, and wondering whether to bother asking.

I saw that he wasn't going to respond. And really, why would he? If he doesn't recognize me now, how would he ever think I would know him or her? Before he could make up his mind, ask or walk away, I turned my head away and sighed. I sighed knowing I was probably making a mistake, but if I don't, how will I ever know? How will I ever know if life can be the same as it was before?

"You're looking for her aren't you?"

That one sentence, no matter how short, held so much in it. So much emotion, so much pain, so much curiosity, so much...I was stopped in my train of thought, he had grabbed my arm, and turned me to face him. My hood, which I had been wearing this whole time, covered my face, casting long shadows across my skin, making it harder to see than it already was. He yanked the hood down, his hands resting on my shoulders.

I looked in his eyes again and saw the light swim to the surface, a glimmer of hope as he looked into my eyes for the first time in a long time. I saw a smile rest upon his face, he had finally found me, finally, after so long, after so many restless nights, after so many days of searching, he can rest. I looked in his eyes and I saw a reflection of myself in them, lit only by the street lamp behind me a few yards. I saw him enjoy standing there, despite the cold, because he doesn't have to keep looking, because life can go back to normal again. Only, I wasn't sure life could go back to normal.