Days without you
1. Day one without you.
For the first five minutes, I could not think straight. My mind and heart were a shallow blur of emotions, spiraling down into a lake of tears. When I first went missing, my only solace was that, somewhere, you were still safe and going on with you life. With or without me, you would be okay; you would move on and find a man that made you happy, and live a life without looking back on me who first left you.
To learn that you were gone in my absence was a blow to the heart. My breath shortened, my eyes teared. It was as if I had been stabbed somewhere near the center of my chest, but I couldn“t exactly tell where or how. It was a hot pain that seared and burned, and made me writhe in agony in the inside.
To learn that you'd been waiting was even worse. That you had hope until the last minute, that you never stopped searching for me. That you thought me alive and somewhere even when everyone else had given up. Those late-night entries in your diary, the way you kept my clothes. As if you had been expecting to wake up from some bad nightmare and find me by your side, sleeping soundly in our bed.
And I was so happy when I finally came home, so happy and fearful. So fearful that you'd moved on and forgotten about me, that you'd now hate me for leaving you behind. But now I'd prefer that to the world I came to, in which you have ceased to exist.
I'm sorry for going without one last kiss, without trailing once more with my finger the line of your cheek. Without seeing one last smile or hearing one last "love you", like every morning back in the good times. I'm sorry for not contacting you while on my mission, for not telling you how much I missed you around. For disappearing and leaving you alone and confused, and fearful for what might have been of me. For never coming back though you believed I would. I was late. I was late. I was terribly late.
Please forgive me.
Love,
Shiro
