Lumbering out of the convenience store, I crumpled the receipt of the eight-dollar Heineken I bought for her and me to feast on. As I took the most minuscule steps towards the park we’ve been reposing at since 11:12 PM, I struggled to lug the couple bags of chips and the case of beer that I have been hauling for the past minute or so.
A few steps were all it took for me to get to right where she was. I placed the goods between us and heaved a sigh of relief. The gloomy evening was cold, quiet, and heavy with languor as I unloaded the plastic bag filled with food.
“Crappy night, huh?” I asked as I opened a bottle – its contents almost filling to the brim.
She didn’t respond. I gave her a dejected look and sipped my beer as I took my wallet out. Reaching into my pocket, I placed the spare change I had from the convenience store and secured it within the leather material’s well-made pleats. Entering the realms of my greatest reveries, I looked up and watched the bare sky – the absence of the stars making the scene even more melancholic.
After a good while of taking in the dark sky, I looked at her and said, “I missed you. You know I can’t be without you, Em.”
She looked right back at me and forced a smile. I looked at her eyes – their depths more lively than life itself could ever be. But still, her body said the opposite. Her hands – pale and thin. Her body – withered from the loss of weight. Her hair – perished from all the medication.
I didn’t even notice the tears until they trickled down my cheeks as I stared at the photo of her in my wallet. She looked so beautiful yet so miserable, and all I wanted to do was to embrace her one last time. But I knew she laid peacefully six feet beneath the ground, the green pastures so fresh atop of her that the smell of sod envelops my nose. I chugged the cold beer down my throat, wishing that it could somehow heal my reopened wounds.
But one promise stands, spoken a few breaths before her last. I vowed that I would not die for her, but that I would live for her. Even so, the temptation to meet her in the next life lingered constantly like a drug – so hard to break free from.
So you tell me, did I break my promise or not?
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