He should have known.
He should've known that he would not be enough to keep her from leaving. He should've realized that she wanted to go see the world and have adventures, not be stuck in Walkerville with him. Yet, every time he had tried to think about it, he had always hoped that she would stay. For him.
She'd been gone for 6 days, 23 hours, and 30 minutes. He counted the days in his mind, reminding himself that she had to come back. She couldn't just leave without saying goodbye. Wasn't he worth more to her than a note on the counter?
There were times he would see a bob of silky black hair and completely stop to see if it was her. But, each time he swore she'd returned to him, it turned out that their eyes were blue, or their smile didn't make him want to embrace them and never let go.
Once, in a moment of pure loneliness and heartbreak, he had visited their third grade classroom. It was where he had first fell for her so many years ago.
Things had changed. Mrs. Frizzle's classroom was being used by a younger teacher, and all the science decorations were replaced with alphabet stickers or multiplication tables. He didn't know what he'd been thinking, going there. It just made him even more unhappy.
Now he lay on his bed, waiting for the clock to strike midnight. One week. It felt like an eternity. He couldn't quite remember life before Wanda Li, and he didn't dare imagine life after.
His radio on the bedside table was at its quietest setting; just white noise for his thoughts. That's what he'd been doing most lately, as painful as it was at times.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture her face. It was getting harder each day. Perhaps he messed up her smile or her eyes. Or the length of her hair. Each image he tried to make in his head felt wrong. That wasn't Wanda. Wanda was gone.
He didn't realize he was crying until he opened his eyes. Had she meant to hurt him this way? The Wanda he knew would never do that. But, then again, he wasn't sure exactly if the Wanda he had known was the real Wanda Li. Was she just a subdued, half-happy Wanda? Not wanting to hurt his feelings but desperate to escape this Podunk town? Why didn't she take him with her?
He knows this is unreasonable. He hadn't wanted to go on any of the field trips in third grade. She must've realized that a life full of travel and adventure and a life with Arnold Perlstein didn't add up.
He should have known.