scheherazadealive
they'd had no way to predict this strange turn of events. they dealt with the past, not the future. once maybe they could have done both but no longer. their powers had faded from how great they had once been, though they went to great effort to conceal that. only he was still as strong. he, and maybe her. maybe she would still be that strong.
once she had been something to reckon with, something all the others of her kind would wonder at. and then she'd died. he'd promised she wouldn't, but she did. and that was against all the rules.
her smile never really got fixed after that day. it was something that was supposed to happen, something that was supposed to heal. but it didn't, and he found that strange. somehow she had managed to miss whatever it was- whoever it was- that would make it all better. well, he thought, if any one could miss that, it was certainly her.
he was waiting for her. always waiting for her. at least until the day came when he would stop believing that she was on the next train, stop believing in her, stop believing at all. but that day wasn't today. today he loved her. today he waited for her. today he was still a child, a child that wouldn't grow up until he realized that she wasn't coming for him. but that day wasn't today, so let's have a happy story now.
there was one thing that she'd thought she would always remember. and that was the way that it had felt getting off of that bar stool, walking over to him, and just slipping her hand into his. it had felt like something that she'd wanted to do forever, but she'd only been intoxicated by his existence for a few short days. slowly forgetting that, piece by piece, was the worst feeling ever.
they used to paint together. it was the only thing they could agree on, really. but even that wasn't true. they would still fight about it. what to paint, what to paint it on, what colors to use, what kind of paint even. but once they started, once they fought about everything and got all of the anger out of their systems, they could sit and paint and just be content and in love. so the painted glass window on the third floor of the house really was their daughter's most prized possession. until one of the neighborhood kids broke it.
she loved him.
it didn't matter. and it still wouldn't in the end. but who is focused on the end in high school? all that matters is here and now, and that's not a trait that most people grows out of. but she did love him. and she dreamed about him. all the time. of lying next to him, wrapped up in his plaid shirt. happy.
they always had music on. it didn't matter what kind, just that there wasn't silence. the silence scared them both though they never asked each other why. maybe they should have, all things considered. maybe they should have asked about the fear of silence or any of the other millions of things that they didn't know about each other. well, it was too late for that now.
She didn't want to ride in it. She wanted to walk. And she told them so, but of course they didn't listen. They never listened. And now they've forgotten that she's afraid of limos. Too much like hearses, she always said.
She left it sitting on the chair when she ran outside. The car was waiting, horn honking, her boyfriend smiling at her from the driver seat. And they weren't the only things waiting for her. The rest of her life was too. The rest of her life.
Maybe one simple backpack, full of childhood memories and silly mementos, don't matter when you have the whole rest of your life ahead of you.
But maybe they do.
She realized it thirty seven miles down the highway and made him turn back so she could get it.
writing since 2011 · 10 entries · 10 days shown up
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paintwaitingnowrestmattersilencestopbelievingrealizedlovedlovehappypiecechildsupposedstrange