(Written for Day 1 of the Writing Rules Mini Project. Song: “Sea of Stars” by Michael Logozar)
The night they said goodbye, the sky was clear. But dread hung over them like clouds, so that although the pavement glistened with starlight, the air was too still for comfort.
They took one last lap around the block, slowing their steps, making them count. Each streetlamp was a spotlight, and they held each other close beneath it. They remembered the good times. They tried to smile. They stopped on the corner and gazed up at the stars.
“Remember the field, when we spun around until it was like a whirlpool above us, and we fell to our knees but we were laughing so hard?”
A tear on a cheek, wiped away by a thumb.
They strolled back, wishing they had more time, but the sands in the hourglass had run out. A kiss on the steps, then a hug. Somehow better. They felt one another trying not to tremble, pressed their shoulders together.
The next morning one waved at the other from a window until the car disappeared down the street. The other waved once and then couldn’t look back.
Someday maybe they would be back together again. Someday they would go to the field and spin around and laugh up at the stars. And they didn’t know it, but someday one would slip a ring on the other’s finger. There would be more tears, but happy ones. They would hug each other so tight they could hardly breathe but they wouldn’t care.
The distance would be made small again, with more scars than either of them could have imagined and more time between them than they thought they could bear. But they would take another lap around the block, almost in disbelief. There would be more. Tragedy’s only tragedy when the story ends too soon. They, at least, would have a happy ending.