Soul Mate Anthologies

As The Years Fly By: 2

It has been seven years since then. The two had married and began to love together.

Yet for some reason, she could feel the weight around her chest increase, a grip so tight that it might burst.

She should be happy, she got her soulmate and he knew, loved and accepted her. So why did her heart pain so?

He was silent as he joined her on their bed. She stilled, waiting. Nothing happened.

Gone were the days when the sun would shine upon their tangled limbs, their faces red from laughter.

Something and changed and she knew why. Yet, she played pretend. She stayed with him.

Another seven years had passed and she couldn't bear it.

The way she would wake in the morning and see his tanned face, her hands would always reach out to soothe the wrinkles that have begun to form near his eyes and lightly tug on the stubble that's forming.

Those mornings have become more frequent. It hurt.

She would pretend to not see his frown as he gazed at her in the silence of their home.

The way he would look at her for a sign of the years they had spent together. Searching for the wrinkles that would never come.

"Morning love." She would say to him.

"Morning." He would reply, the words, "my angel" a mere whisper of the past.

Yet she stayed.

It was now almost twenty years since they met each other.

Their playful tender touches now a thing of the past. Words absent between the two.

It was no surprise when he asked her to meet him at the flower stand. She knew this day would come.

She had hoped it would have been sooner. He didn't deserve to have suffered like this.

"Gab...Gabbie." he began, unsure how to proceed.

She smiled and pointed at the space beside her on the bench, "You can sit you know, I won't bite."

He shook his head. He was serious about this conversation, "You know what would happen."

Yes, she knew. Twenty years and she still looked no older than a high schooler while he looked like the overworked man he was.

"I am sorry." He whispered, "I know we are supposed to be forever. I wish we could be together but when I see you and know how I look, I just can't help but feel wrong!"

She nodded. She understood him well.

It was time, wasn't it.

"You mean the world to me. Gabbie... where are you going? Gabbie?"

She ignored his call as she ran away.

She had been prepared for it for a long time.

She was just waiting for him to be ready to let go. Now that he admitted it, she ran. Ran away, ignoring the pang in her heart.