It felt like a deafening weight had been cast upon the world. She was sure birds were chirping somewhere as the sun was setting in the far distance, but she couldn’t hear them. She couldn’t see the light sweeping over the landscape. The last moments of evening preparing for their departure.
“Goodbye, Aurelia.”
Each syllable, each letter as it was pronounced sharpened the pain inside her. The tightness in her throat, the catch of her breath, the rush of blood roller coastering through her veins. Every molecule that made her silently screamed his name.
The soundless world faded behind the graying wallpaper of her eyelids. The faint stripes of her lashes like bars on a jail cell; her world just as restrictive. The weight of darkness settling in painting over a gray world to a dark black one. When her eyes opened the world was a blur before her, ripples of brick and asphalt, the concrete river of sidewalk, it all swayed and danced through the film.
In a blink nighttime had come. He had gone. A bluish Mazda sedan replaced his olive green Jeep Gladiator. The notable lampposts filled with a warm yellow glow. In a heartbeat it had all changed.
She could hear it. Softly, strangely, the only thing she could hear was the dying thud of her heart; surrendering to the siege of icy numbness. She had changed. Hurt where her happiness had been. Anger instead of peace. Her body was that of a strangers. Everything she had known about herself had driven off. He had left. . . her.
Not without her. Not until next time.
He had just left her.
Back home.
Home.
To his career.
To his wife. Their three cats.
Five years, of waiting, mapping, planning, preparing. She went to extra help for subjects she didn’t need and helped kids she didn’t like because he was part of the student/teacher tutoring program. She pushed herself, physically and mentally, to be on the girls lacrosse team because he coached it. She put together a college tour for juniors requesting he be her faculty advisor so they could find her the right school. And they did, they had, two and a half hours away in a small town, quaint and Hallmark like. One where housing was limited and freshman could have their own off campus apartments! They picked it for her. She blew off summer orientation for their anniversary. A weekend getaway. He had made plans for them. From the time they had met in eighth grade, he had filled in for one of her teacher’s for half the year, everything had been about her, about them. Had been. . .
Her parents had moved her in two days ago. Reservations for three at the fanciest restaurant in town for her 18th birthday. Dinner was lovely. It would have been a lovely weekend, but she shooed them away a day early so she could settle in before orientation started. Really, it was okay that she would be spending her actual birthday alone. She wasn’t going to be alone. He was coming to her. A weekend alone in her place. She was surprised her parents hadn’t noticed the joy radiating from her, then again, they probably thought it was because of school. Of being eighteen. They didn’t know it was because she was in love. In love with a man that loved her.
A man that was going to be here for her. For her birthday. To send her off to orientation. . . he certainly had. He had sent her off. Like the tear rolling down her face. It could have been swiped away with a hand motion or left to roll to its death, slowly, painfully, embarrassingly. He said goodbye, and didn’t even watch as she hit the ground.
Aurelia blinked. The fallen tear coming in and out of focus on newly paved street. In the distance laughs and screams from human beings, students probably, teens — young adults — her own age. A few small groups of them. Exploring the town, each other. She remembered all the times he explored her body, and she his. She saw his face when he had arrived that day. . . before the sex, the walk about, the lunch; before the goodbye. . . The look in his eyes, strength, resolve, determination, a hint of mischief, same as they ever were. They looked out behind her, toward the bar. Her body turned toward the noise. Her eyes adjusting to just how hard the night had fallen. Droves of rowdy lemmings waddling from the bar, the one geared toward the college kids, arcade games and a beer pong section for the 21+.
Her heartbeat was gone.
Like a zombie she moved, each step in vain toward finding herself, her soul. It was gone. Long gone. She didn’t see it in the hallway, couldn’t trace the feeling of it on the way back to her apartment. It was void, absent, dead.
Standing in her bedroom, Aurelia looked out onto the street. The Jeep nor any other sign of her was left behind. The warm glow of morning dawn illuminated nothing but her sorrow. There was nothing left of her.
A soft whisper, her voice cracked, “Goodbye, Aurelia.”