Hide & Seek

Goodbye.

We stood in silence tumid by the splashing of the waves at the shore and the high wind. From the corner of my eye I saw Reya drift over. She stared between us. Damn her! She could have warned me.

"What are you doing here?" I finally asked.

He rocked back and forth on heels, hands stuffed deeply in the pockets. Finally, he straightened. "I'm leaving."

Two simple words. I felt the swirling of my blood coming to a halt, my body freezing. The air pulsated hard around me, ultimately forgeing a contact with my skin and pushing me back to the present. My heart pounded in my chest. I clenched my suddenly swealting hands. "You are?".

He gazed at me. His eyes troubled. "Yeah."

I nodded. It was for good- or atleast, was for the better. "When?"

His eyes lingered on me, then he glanced at the shore. "Next week."

"Does Miha know?"

"Not yet. But she's going to throw a fit." He chuckled. Nervous and tentative.

I was still staring at him. Taking him in- perhaps for the last time. "Will you change your mind?"

He seemed regretful. "Probably not."

From the corner of my eye I saw Reya. She was motionless, a perfect replica of dead, confined in a coffin. The ones I saw on all those American dramas.

I wished Nicholas could see her too but he was tethered by a fate that procured a path disparate from mine and hers, a path which resolved to never meet mine thoroughly and even if I were to try and tell him that I could see his mother, I knew it would get all too convoluted than it was tangled up now.

His gaze was deliberate, shrouding  the irresolutions and despondency  that was trying to peep out any second. I could see it in the smoothness of his forehead and the mess of hair that half concealed it, the trembling edge of his mouth, the redness of his face, the breathing which he was trying to balance and the hands that were loosely curled up on his sides.

"I'll miss you." He said, softly- quietly.

My heart bled for him. For us. So young and at edge of breaking. I knew, one day we will be over it. There was so much in life to live up to. One day it won't hurt as much as it did now. One day we will have rational apprehension of this as we were trying to make of it now.

There were uncountable things I wanted to say to him, apologize about, and hear him ramble on and on, going all Copernicus. I wanted to say, I'm sorry for everything. I wish I could keep you here, with me, forever, and learn how to ride a bycycle in sunset, make blue berry pies. I want you to believe that I too wish everything were different. I wish I had met you earlier, when we were tiny kids. I wouldn't have let you go, I would have held onto you. Neither would I have left because you wouldn't have let me. Perhaps, that way we could have had more time and just to trounce with our own casualties and repercussions we wouldn't have to go seperate ways.

"Me too." I murmured, in spite of all the things I could have said.

He took a step back. His eyes roamed around and finally rest on me. Suddenly, he neared, grasped my shoulders and turned me around. "You see that," he pointed at the light house far ahead, its light overpassing the dock.

"Yeah." I nodded.

He let go of my shoulders and stood beside me. "One day, I'll meet you there."

I turned to him, surprised. "What?"

He smiled. "One day, I'll meet you there on the top of the lighthouse. I promise."

"Don't make such promises. We don't even know..."

"We do. We will come back. We will meet again in our hometown."

"You have high hopes."

He grinned. "I've inspirations."

And beholding his warm smile and lambent eyes, I couldn't help, but smile.

He gave me wink before turning away, off to his way now.

I just had one more question, so I stopped him. "Nicholas."

He turned around. "What?"

"Do you forgive your mother?" From the corner of my eyes I found Reya perturbed.

Nicholas stared at me. Contemplating and said. "There's nothing to forgive, she made her choice," at this I saw Reya go stiff. "All I could do," he went on, "is to remember her and love her."

And this was what she wanted to hear. I swear if ghost could cry she did.
Nicholas waved me and slowly dispersed into the dark of night.
Over head stars glimmered in what probably could be in rejoice, for a love that never died. "I'll miss you. You are the most amazing friend I've ever had." I wispered to Reya. To Nicholas.

"Yeah, me too." I heard her voice, quiet, cased with joy and pain.

"Why ar you...." My words died in the air as my eyes encountered the empty space. "Reya?" I called. "Reya?" I called again and again. I screamed her name until my throat was sore and by the time I couldn't, my eyes bligthed from relentless tears, there was just one answer.

That night two things happend. Reya disappeared from my life, never to be seen again, probably to the afterlife that we both desired and Nicholas William  left with an empty promise. A promise that might become a reason for me to come back.
Might.