Look Up

Just Tonight

There is something about darkness that lets you see everything the light hides.

Wind whips along the coast as I close my eyes where I sit beneath the tree, letting the darkness take me to my dreams.

Just tonight. Just for one night. Just so I can remember him one last time, before I let him go.

Just tonight.

Just tonight, I'll let my memories be magic and walk with me through my sorrow.

And they do.

~~

"Sera! Look up!"

I did, but his eyes weren't on me. He had a finger pointed to the sky, watching the stars as they watched him, awestruck wonder on his face.

We were three.

"Sera, look up!"

I did, and found him hanging upside down from the tree, knees hooked about the branch. He laughed maniacally and for all my silence, I couldn't help but join in.

We were seven.

"Sera! Look up."

I did, pulling my eyes from my book to find him grinning, holding a carnation out for me.

We were eleven.

"Sera. Look up."

I did, and smiled at the C- scrawled on his test, so different than the A plastered on mine. But he didn't mind. He had a love for imperfection.

We were thirteen.

"Sera, look up."

I did, and he held out for me the results of his exam. The medical exam. Advanced heart failure.

We were fifteen.

"Sera. Look up."

I did. His voice was no more than a breath, that breath his last.

I was sixteen.

~~

I open my eyes from my memories to find that the light from the setting sun has faded. The night sky watches over me now.

There is something about darkness that lets you see everything the light hides.

And it hid my happiness, folding it into the pockets of shadows unseen in the sun.

For a year.

But now, I finally see. In the innocence of blind darkness, my happiness finds its way back to me.

It's been one year. Exactly one.

And it is time to say goodbye.

There is something magical about darkness, about the stars in the sky. Something that's a touch more than reality, that lets you hide away from the world.

One year, and tonight, for the first time, a smile of the smallest sort makes its way to my face.

There is magic in the air, and it tells me, You're not alone.

You've never been alone.

He may be gone, but he left me memories. Each one a magic of its own kind.

One year, and tonight — just tonight — I know he's still with me, hanging in the sky with the stars that blanket the night.

I don't take my gaze from the ocean. But leaves rustle in the wind, and I know he's here.

I hear his voice, just a whisper on the breeze, and I must have imagined it, but tonight — just tonight — I pretend I didn't.

"Sera, look up."

And I do.