The first time I saw her, we were teenagers. She was just some stranger, standing in front of the local library, talking with another girl. It looked like a passing conversation, full of polite yet brief gestures, as if they had just bumped into each other on the sidewalk. She was carrying a thick, older looking book, and as I approached their spot on the asphalt, I noticed it didn't have a title. As I passed, they said hurried goodbyes. She turned around and bumped into my arm, knocking the book out of her hand. It landed on the ground in a flurry of ruffled pages, and she muttered a halfhearted apology as she bent to pick it up.
She glanced to me from the ground, locking eyes with mine, and I noticed hers were a rather boring shade of green behind thick eyelashes. Her long pink hair was slightly frizzy, in a wind-tossed type of way. She had a little upturned nose that reminded me of a flower petal. She rose from the ground, book tucked neatly under her arm. She was wearing jeans and a worn cotton t-shirt.
I looked away, and kept walking.
~x~
It's two years from that moment on the side walk. I see her across the street, hand in another man's arm. She was wearing a red dress that dipped low in the back, falling gracefully to her calves. She was laughing, smiling, looking intently to the man who was holding her attention. They had just left the restaurant adjacent to where they now stand on the sidewalk. Her lips were painted a soft pink, and they curled back to expose white teeth.
I was walking home from the post office, dropping off a letter to a place it would never get to, and she was still a stranger, with a life that was blind to mine. As I passed them, something must have compelled her to look up, and once again, we made eye contact. Hers were still a boring shade of green, and mine were still unseeing. She smiled at me this time. A raindrop fell onto her cheek.
I looked away, and kept walking.
~x~
I'm sitting at a bar, music playing softly in the background. Casually sipping a soda, I stare down at the letter I had torn from an envelope, the red return stamp still fresh on the front. Condensation droplets fell from my glass and onto the paper, blurring the lines and smudging the ink. I heard the screech of the bar-stool next to me. I tucked the letter into the envelope and folded the paper three ways, sticking it into my back pocket.
I glanced over to find her, slumped over the bar, a curtain of wet pink hair hiding her face from me. I looked to the window, seeing the lazy drizzle of rain and frowned. I didn't bring an umbrella.
Her soft voice calling to the bartender brought my attention back to her, and I listened as she ordered a drink. Feeling my gaze on her, she turned slightly, pivoting her chair in my direction by the slightest degree. Her eyes were still green, still boring, but this time, they were sad. She was sitting so close I could smell her peach scented shampoo. She had a bruise under her left eye.
The bartender came back, gave her a glass full of dark liquid, and she took a drink.
I looked away, but stayed where I was.
~x~
A year passed, and we're in the same bar. I'm no longer writing letters to no where, and she's no longer a passing stranger. We're slow dancing on the floor, her head on my chest, the hairs on the top of her head tickling my chin. It's a lazy swaying motion, seemingly awkward to everyone but us. She's whispering the words of the song in a breathy mumble, drawing small circles on my back.
The song ends too soon, and the bartender makes his last calls, and I look down at her. She smiles at me, a sweet little thing that's slowly becoming my whole world. Her eyes are no longer a boring shade of green. They're just green, and kind of pretty, and she glances down at the floor. Her hair is much longer now, and still a little frizzy, but when she looks up, I find myself with the urge to kiss her.
I can't look away.
~x~
It's three years now. She's laughing, squealing in delight as I throw a glob of paint in her direction. My clothes are ruined, but I find it hard to care when she's smiling, the sparkle in her teeth doing funny things to my chest. Her beautiful green eyes are sparkling with mischief as she sends a splash of peach colored paint in my direction, and I narrowly dodge it.
We're painting the house we just bought together, the ring on her left finger sparkling in the morning sun. The slight swell in her belly makes her cheeks glow a beautiful pink as she ducks to avoid an attack. I manage to catch up with her, and before she could run away again, I grab her hips, pulling her to me. My lips are on hers faster than I could register what I was doing, and she slides her arms around my neck, sinking into me.
I don't want to be anywhere but here.
~x~
She's curled into the fetal position, gripping my hand as tears slide down her pale cheeks. Her breaths come out in choked hiccups. I'm looking at the window, but I'm not really thinking about anything. The sound of machines beeping and people talking float around us in a haze, and the atmosphere is somber. She lets out a tiny cry, curling tighter into her self, and there's nothing I can do but call to her. She ignores me.
The doctor comes in, and she unfurls from herself enough to look at him, who's looking at me. I'm still looking at the window. He tells us what we knew all along, and she lets out a horrible sob as I just keep staring out the window. A little bird flew by, right as the raindrops started streaming down the glass. The doctor's telling us what to do next, and what to expect, and she's listening, but I'm not there. Not really.
I want to be anywhere but there.
~x~
I'm drunk, and she's heart broken. The kitchen is still unpainted, and the pictures for the hallway are still in bubble wrap. She lays in bed and I come home late. We're ghosts now, shadows of the people who loved that baby, who loved this house, who loved each other. She cries, and I get mad. We're lost and broken and we don't know what to do.
There's phone calls, and letters, and friends who come to check on us. We assure everyone we're alright, that things are getting better when they're actually really getting worse. One evening at dinner, she finally looks at me, really looks at me, with her boring green eyes. That night, I go upstairs to the desk, and begin something I haven't done in years.
Hesitantly, I pull out a piece of paper and begin to write a letter.
~x~
It's been two years now, I'm holding onto her as we're watching T.V. The kitchen is painted and the pictures hung, and she's actually giggling as she tosses a piece of popcorn into my mouth. I chew happily as her pretty green eyes sparkle. Her eyes never really returned to how they used to be, and it's almost as if they're a different shade now.
She kisses my neck, and I smile softly as she trails butterfly kissed to my collarbone. I pull her close, and hum in appreciation. She begins to wiggle impatiently next to me, pulling at my shirt. I take her face into my hands gently, and give her a soft kiss. She sighs contentedly, and I pull her beneath me. I lay her down slow and sweet, our bodies mingling puzzle pieces that fit oh so perfectly.
This is where I belong.
~x~
I come home from work to her crying softly in the bathroom, the door closed and my heart pounds. I toss my keys onto the counter and hurry to the door, knocking and calling to her softly. I'm greeted with sobs and pull at the handle, finding it locked. Panicked, I yell and pull and there's nothing else to do, so I kick it in.
She's sitting on the edge of the tub, her face in her hands and her heart on her sleeve, choking back sobs. I rush to her, pulling her into my arms and rubbing her face lovingly. She clings to me as if the world is going to fade away, and I murmur to her how much I love her and her pretty green eyes and frizzy hair. She hiccups, and says nothing. Finally, she pulls away from me and points to the sink wordlessly.
Confused, I rise to my feet, scanning my eyes over the counter. I find a little stick and my heart races. I pick it up as if it were a ticking bomb, and two little pink stripes send my stomach to my knees. I glance over to her for confirmation and she nods slowly.
My body reacts before my mind, and I scoop her in my arms and kiss her over and over and over again. She seems aloof, sad, and when I look into her eyes I find sadness.
My heart is full of love, and it breaks.
~x~
It's months later now, the doctor assures us everything is fine, everything is going as it should, and yet she lays around the house as if the slightest of movements would kill what we both so desperately want. She begins to crumble, slipping back into who she was when fate was cruel to even good people. I go to work and try to be happy, and yet it feels like she's drifting farther away from me, and farther away from who I know she is.
I lay in bed at night now. Thinking about returned letters and bar dances. Rainy days and red dresses and old books with no titles. I watch her sleep, thinking about those pretty green eyes laying dormant behind puffy eyelids. I think about everything that has led up to where we are now. Strangers turned into friends turned into lovers. How things are a series of events in life, leading us up to the moments that truly matters.
One night, as I lie awake, thinking about hospital rooms and little birds, she bolts out of her sleep in a cry of pain, and hugs her swollen belly.
~x~
It's a girl, and we're both ecstatic. She has hair as black as ink and a little upturned nose, like a flower petal. Like her mother. She's a sweet, somber child, and despite many warnings from our friends and family, she sleeps beautifully through the night, and hardly ever cries. I go to work with a genuine smile on my face, and I come home to my wife with beautiful green eyes and a lovely daughter who babbles at me from the doorway.
Life then flashes by in a series of happy events. First birthday, first laugh, first tooth, first word, first step, first sentence, first dance, all the way until the first day of preschool. I wake up in the mornings, ready to face the days and all that comes with it, and go to bed, no longer awake in the night, content with how things are.
Funny how life works out sometimes.
~x~
I come home one day from work, and I don't see my loving wife or my grinning daughter in the doorway. Worried, I rush into the house, frantically calling out both of their names, and I'm met with a waddling toddler, crying out the word "Daddy". I scoop her up in my arms and rush to the kitchen where I find a fire starting on the stove. That must have been dinner.
I snap the stove off and scramble around the house, screaming for her, our daughter sobbing in my arms, and I hear a moan in the bathroom. I run in, placing our daughter safely on the toilet as I bend down, her eyes screwed shut as she cries softly and grabs her stomach.
I call for an ambulance, and for the first time in my life I pray.
~x~
She had an ectopic pregnancy, and her tube ruptured. Without talking to me first she had her last remaining tube tied, and my heart broke all over again. Vivid images comes back to me of the first time something like this happened and I watch her closely. She seems fine around the house, humming to herself as she takes care of things as she usually does. Our daughter is fine, continuing life as if nothing ever happened to mommy, although I don't think she truly understands.
I go to work, and come home to a wife and a daughter in the doorway, as usual. Except, I'm lying awake at night again, watching her sleep and thinking about things long gone. I look to my desk, no longer full of empty letters, and I think about my parents. For the first time in a very, very long time. I think about my brother, and I think about the life I have and the life they wanted me to have. I realize that despite what happened, the two are not so far off from each other, and I quietly slip out of bed to write another letter.
This time, though, the letter had a different message in it.
~x~
A few years pass, and the first day of preschool turns into Kindergarten, and that into First grade, and so on and so forth. Our little girl is no longer a babbling toddler, but a smart, clever child with intelligent eyes and long black hair. She looks more like her mother everyday, and my heart is always full with the thought of my family. Of both of my families: the present and the past.
Finally, one day I notice. During a family trip to the zoo, whilst carrying our daughter on my shoulders, I look to her to tell her something and I see it. Deep within her eyes as she looks to another woman with a newborn infant, I see the sadness. The hopelessness. The desire. I immediately get really angry. A hot fury, igniting instantly within my stomach.
She chose this. She didn't give me a choice. How dare she be upset when she decided this on her own? How dare she desire something she willingly took away from herself? From us? From me?
A tiny hand on my face, and I'm broken out of my thoughts. I look up to my daughter, who's looking down at me in concern. My eyes wordlessly turn back to my wife's, and she's watching me with a mix of horror and embarrassment. She knows I saw her, and she knows what I was thinking.
I looked away, and kept walking.
~x~
Since the day at the zoo we've been distant. I don't hate her, at least I don't think I do, but our daughter is finally beginning to feel the tension between us. She's tried to talking to me, but whenever I think about it, my anger coils me up so tight I shut her out. Does she not realize how bad I wanted another child? How hard it was for me to cope with the fact she took away something as big as our choice to further children without even talking to me first? How hard it was for me to love her through it, when all I wanted to do was scream at her and shake her in frustration?
I go through the motions now. Wake up, work, home, sleep, repeat. But as time goes on I've noticed that I've been going out a lot more, to a bar that once housed a lost man and a sad woman. The bartender welcomes me warmly, and I order a drink that's not the usual soda. He tries not to frown, yet I see it straining in his eyes, but he serves me the drink anyways.
I take a long swig, welcoming the burn, and I feel a set of eyes on me. I turn to my right, and see a pair of hungry eyes watching me from across the bar. I turn back to the bartender, intent on ignoring them, but the sultry eyes saunter to the bar anyways.
A lot of drinks and clumsy words, and she's holding onto my arm. She's trying to whisper in my ear, but all I hear is static. I feel in my chest that I need to get away, get out of here and get into bed and never come back, but our song is playing and she isn't here to mumble the words into my chest and my heart just hurts it fucking hurts and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
Before I can do anything else, the door to the bar opens, and I make out the shape of her body. She's clutching a letter in her hand, and my heart races when I see the return stamp on the envelope. She has tears in her eyes, and she's looking to me.
Here we are again. A lost man and a sad woman.
~x~
She took our daughter and she left. She's staying with her parents for a while, something about trying to find herself again, and the house is full of ghosts. I come home to the ghost of her and our daughter in the doorway, I eat dinner next to their ghosts at the dinner table, and at night I lay next to her ghost in bed. I'm lonely, and I'm sad, and I'm broken, and I wish things were different. I want to be happy again, because the sadness is starting to seep into my bones and it's scaring me.
One day, I decide the anger's not worth it anymore, and I drive to her parents house and I knock on the door and when she opens it, it's like gravity forces me on my knees and she's staring at me as I wrap my arms around her waist and beg her to come home. That I forgive her. That I understand why she did what she did and I'm not mad at her for it. That I'm ready to tell her about my family and their sins that led them to their graves and that I never told her or anybody really because I was determined that that wasn't going to be me. That I love her, and our daughter, and I just want my family back.
She runs her fingers through my hair and I look into her beautiful green eyes as she cries, and our daughter peeks out from behind the doorway and watches curiously. I blink back tears as I stand up, and she propels herself into my arms as she sobs that she's pregnant. I feel the wind get knocked out of me and I'm pretty sure I lost feeling in my body for a moment as it absorbs the shock of it all. I pull her face into my hands and I kiss her as gently as I can as our daughter clings to both our legs.
I found my wife again, and I take my family home.
~x~
It's my daughter's tenth birthday, and my wife is due any day now. We're expecting a healthy baby boy. We still haven't gotten a name picked out yet, but she assures me we'll know once he's born. The party is starting in a half hour, and the house is already full of guests. I'm rushing out of the store with my daughter's requested birthday cake, complete with a huge picture of her favorite cartoon characters on the front.
I get into my car, and turn on the ignition and begin to pull out of my parking space. My cell phone rings. I pull it out as I turn onto the road. It's my wife, calling to tell me that she had forgotten the plastic cups, and asking me to pick them up on my way home. I turn on my blinker to turn left, as I make my turn I inform her that there was some plastic cups under the-
A crunching sound and my head hits the window. Glass breaks, shouting, the car is still moving, screeching, and it hits something else, and darkness ensues. I hear sirens, but they're getting farther and farther away...
It's my daughter's birthday. My wife is pregnant. I have to get back to my family.
I have to get back to...
I have to...
I...
…...
~x~
Uchiha Sasuke. Devoted Husband, Loving Father. May he rest in peace.