2024: The Inevitable
I remember the day I told him I was moving away. I had feared it would be the end of us, so I had put it off until the last week. My tears had already begun to fall before I dialled his phone number with shaking fingers.
“I have to tell you something,” the words could barely escape my uncontrollable, aggressive sobs.
“You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
I told him the heart-wrenching news. He replied with only, “We will work it out.”
A few weeks after I left, I cried myself to sleep. Every night. Sometimes, I would force the tears to come to make myself feel even the slightest bit better. A puddle would form under my left cheek, staining my skin. Ever so slowly, their salty taste dripped upon my pillow until there was a stain that would never be clean, no matter how many times I tried to scrub it away.
I never used to cry about him. He was always the one who kissed away any tears that dared to escape my eyes. His soft lips possessed a sweet maple scent that killed the saltiness on my pale cheeks. “Everything will be all right; I will always be there for you. And I will always love you,” his words would trace the paths of my tears. But now, he is their catalyst instead of my emotional barrier.
I remember how it used to be when I lived two minutes away from him. We would escape to the beach at night and watch the sunset. He would hold me close, his strong arms protecting me from the darkness once the orange and pink tints left the sky. But once I travelled to a faraway town, the memory of those moments made it more difficult to be apart. He is now 265 kilometres away from me, his deep blue eyes and goofy crooked smile no longer awaiting my presence each time school finishes.
No more awkward goodbye kisses in front of our friends. No more catching his playful gaze on me when I turned around to face the back of the school bus. No more competing about who had seen the most yellow cars on the ride home and refusing to believe that either of us was the loser. In this new town, I sit on the rickety bus and watch the water spill down the dusty stained-glass window as the driver speeds through the downpour. And I walk home alone, shivering under the never-ending presence of the rain.
Mum had said we were moving to a beach town filled with bright people and sunny days. But ever since we arrived, all the sky has done is cry, its tears never seeming to dry. Back home, the sky is a deep ocean blue, mirroring the colour of his eyes. The sun's warmth would bubble underneath my skin, just as it did whenever he found a way to keep his body close to mine. My golden hair would absorb its natural light while his fair skin turned tomato red under its heat. The sun never failed me, but now, that’s all it has been doing.
He would be surprised to see how I’ve changed: the highlights in my hair have dulled, my olive skin has turned into a chalk-like tone, and the odd-placed freckles on my cheeks have disappeared, making it seem that there were never any to begin with.
I miss him. The pleasance of his warm breath caressing my cheek. His straw-like hair still soft to the touch of only my fingertips. Even his silly long toes sticking out from the end of the bed, popping out to say hello. Everything of him used to be mine, but the distance I was forced to place between us makes me feel that we are merely strangers now.
The day I told him: a strange moment mixed with relief and sadness. My eyes burned as the tears emptied them out, falling down my puffy face. My heart pounded as if there was a stampede inside my chest. “Thank you. Are you sure? Is it going to be too hard? I want you to be happy. Long distance never works out. I’m going to miss you so much.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before the sobs took control again.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that he was so calm. Even as my chest constricted and I struggled to inhale the air that was so ready to be taken. His voice was controlled, while mine was hysterical. He needed to be the grounded one because he knew if he let one voice crack escape or one tear fall, he would be giving up on the idea of hope for our future. And he knew I had given up hope since the moment I was told we were moving. He knew I had accepted the inevitable: we would never be the same again.
