He reached over and touched her. A simple enough gesture which, in normal life wouldn't have been given a second glance.
But that touch was a metal blade, shooting through me, pulling me apart like a child ripping paper.
Her name fell over me like red rain drops, blood and tears, the sky a leaking bucket of dying love. I wanted to pound the dust and break the earth in two. I wanted it to die. I wanted cracks to spread under her feet, pulling them both under, to join me in my abyss.
Surely I was dead - for my voice made no noise. Even my crying sobs, releasing out all of my life in their being, didn't seem to reach her.
He drew her closer. I had become a melting snow flake. I didn't want to watch, but my eyes were sewn to her, for fear that she would disappear and leave me again. He wrapped her inside him, pulling her down. His arms black choking smoke, leaving her helpless. She was choking on him, on herself and her own decision. The ring on her finger showed all she had become. A lying love. Surely I was nothing more than a photograph - a piece of paper left in a drawer, hidden under clothes, for if I was discovered I'd prove her she was wrong.
He pulled her in deeper still. The silence was hurting me more than any sound could. All had become one.
This moment and every one I had shared with her had melted together, leaving happiness tied with tears, fear and love, anger and calmness. She and he were weaving together, knitting themselves into a new and beautiful being. Still my fading hearts beat silently in their places.
I could not feel. Her warmth had turned me to ice. I wanted to be anywhere but there, but at the same time the moment had locked me down and held me there. I wanted more than anything I had ever thought of ever wanting to be there in place of him.
I would make the most beautiful song with her, and what we created would be the most wonderful thing of all time. But still her beat was beating with his, leaving me in the shadows.
But then she hadn't seen me.
If she had seen me then maybe she wouldn't have let him touch her.
But I stayed hidden, feverishly imagining myself in her arms. I was her burning star, her brown tree-eyed angel. Her blond hair would blur into yellow fire, and my eyes would envelop her. We would become a flower, twirling around and around, dancing in the star light.
But instead of my eyes, she was looking into his, the ring on her finger binding them together. She was a burning rose, a bird trying desperately to fly, her beauty crumbling in front of her. All she had once been was dirt, and I trampled in it.
I had come to find her, and in doing so I had killed a part of my surviving soul. Finally she released herself from his dark grip, letting her hair swirl around her in the warmed air. She laughed, and my ears relished.
Her laugh was air and water- it gave me strength like oxygen, beating through my veins, but drowned me. It floated through the air like a flower petal, and I reached for it, wanting to touch something of hers. I felt his laugh too, a dark rumbling thunder clap. They fell apart from each other, lying in the beach sands, their hands gripped together.
Still, oh still I stood hidden in my shadow, watching the sun falling. I knew they would leave soon. The cold would sweep over the lands like a river, and the lovers would be forced to retreat. The sun, my burning joy, was the one to get up first. She pulled him up with her, and I saw the happiness painted on his face. Did he deserve her more than me?
One last embrace, the light behind her tumbling, and they wandered away, her happiness and his an everlasting picture in my memory.
I rose up from the darkness, watching the white turn to black, and felt the ice in my heart grow colder still. The waves moved slowly, waltzing with the moon.
I walked over to the shore, the beach warm where the lovers had danced. I reached down and held the warmth to my chest. I did not want to leave. I turned around to watch the two figures, my love and her lover, oblivious to who had witnessed their act, and could not help it.
At first I felt my hearts beating from outside of me, telling me to move faster. My feet picked up this notion, taking me from that spot on the bay, and my arms followed shortly after.
My body pulled me forward, slicing through the sea air. I was screaming their names.
Hers first, then his.
I ran, the sun gone behind me. Soon the moon would appear. I could feel the star light beginning to burn in the pits of the sky. I was getting closer to them.
She dropped his hand and clutched her own to her chest. The impossible had come to fruition, if not too late. I ran, crying away all my feelings, my hands stretched out as far as they could go.
I cried her name so loud I was sure the dead and heavens would hear.
Her feet told her to move also, and her body followed. Her arms were reaching out to wrap around me and pull me in. Back to where she belonged and always had. She was my missing piece. I felt the earth tilt and my face contort in happiness.
Day had become night.
She cried my name back. I saw him look towards us, a circle of true love. His ring glowed faintly on his finger. What would she do now?
The past had become the present, and the future the present too. All that had ever mattered, all that would, and all that did, was encircled by my arms. I could really, and truly, forever, stay like that, in that place, in that way, in her arms. It was where I had always wanted to belong.
I had found home again.