Short Romance Stories

Sun is Shining

The sun was so bright.

It was so clear to me, I felt it was real. I could even smell the saltiness of the water as it surged and shrank, pulling the sand over our feet.

He smiled at me. A wonderful, heart-melting smile. The type that made my legs feel like jelly.

"Let's play tag!" He shouted, laughing as he ran a few feet away, then turned to see if I was following.

I wanted to decline but when this childish happiness came out of him, I found the answer no quite lacking from my vocabulary.

Giggling, I chased after him.

He ran as fast as his legs could carry him. I soon realized I had no chance of catching him.

"Slow down!" I called, but he either didn't hear me or ignored.

He kept racing, never once looking back.

I saw he was heading straight for a cliff, but his steps didn't waver at all.

Save him! I heard a voice say. He's going to fall!

I tried my best to overtake him, screaming for him to stop the entire time.

But inside I knew it was too late.

I refused to give up. I called for every ounce of strength I could muster.

For a moment, it seemed like was going to make it in time, that I was gaining on him.

But the hope disappeared as a piece of driftwood materialized in front of my foot.

The warmth of blood spread across my face and arms. I felt trapped, each limb weighing hundreds of pounds. Nevertheless, I forced my head up.

He was gone...

"NO!" I shrieked. "No!!"

The sand around me piled up. No, not piled, I was being pulled down.

Panicked, I thrashed but the sand just continued to yank me under.

I screamed, loudly, hoping someone, anyone would rescue me. The sand, seemingly in response, poured into my mouth, trying to silence me.

And yet I screamed. "No! No!"

"NO!"

I inhaled the sweet air.

No sand held me down, but the sheets tangled my limbs.

It was only a nightmare. A scarily realistic nightmare, but still just a nightmare nonetheless.

I touched my face; moist. Whether it was sweat or tears, I wasn't sure.

Sighing, I lied back down, rolling to the left to wrap my arms around the warm body beside me.

But my hands only touched the cool of bedsheets.

I sat up, wondering where he had gone this early.

And then awareness hit me.

"Oh" that's all I could say.

In the daze of only just waking, I had forgotten my grief, my pain. But those blissfully clear moments now diminished by the weight of memory.

The memory, of last week in the hospital, the memory of the nightmares, such as this one and sometimes worse, that plagued me every night, the memory of it.