DISCLAIMER: Mai HiME and its characters are Sunrise property. The song title comes from the Diamond Rio song I locked into play. Thanks go to the band and to the songwriters, Jon Vezner and Paul Williams.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I had to post this. My love, I thank you for sharing my passion and in this game. This one should have been here sooner, as it may well be the last...TBD...
You're Gone
We lay silently staring at the ceiling, could it be true? Were we going to get up three days from now and walk out the door alone at separate times? There had been so many nights I had lay in her arms watching her chest rising and fall with her breathing. There had been an almost equal number of nights I awakened to her smiling face.
"Do you really have to go overseas to chase your dream?" she asked from alongside of me, not daring to meet my eyes.
"Yeah there's nothing here, nothing but a woman whose love I can't possess," I replied feeling the bitter sting of my words as I adjusted my position under the covers. I was facing her now. Tears filled the intense golden glossy mirrors of her slowly breaking heart, as they overfilled and cast down her cheek.
"You're not making this easy…I never said…I…" she started to breakdown and it was then that I wanted to just hold her closer to me and soothe her pain.
I slid closer and kissed her teary eyes, thumbing away their trail down her cheek, and then nestling her head between my breasts. It was a wet feeling, a feeling that stopped my own heart, and caused the forming of my own tears. I reached out with all my senses and reached for my connection to her, as it had always been.
Her sobbing was tearing me into pieces, memories of her other love kept flashing through my mind. Every time she'd been broken down and left shattered, it had been because of her. I now had to face the harsh truth; I was doing it ten times over in one fell swoop. I've never wanted to cause her such pain and here I was do just that.
A knock came at my door, my so called guardian slash teacher slash friend was checking on us. She didn't wait for my okay; she stuck her head in the room, and ducked back out with my alarm clock nearly hitting her. I could hear the choking start as she was now so blocked by her tears, it felt like tiny brushing hands against my stomach, as her breasts pushed and fell with each hitch.
I want to spend all of our last time together touching and tasting her. I can't stand myself for even thinking it right now, even as my leg brushes between her legs settling as she adjusts again. She sucks in a lungful of air and returns into my breasts settling in my cleavage like she always did. This time the wetness was her tears, every other time over the years it had been her lips or her tongue, kissing and tasting me.
It felt like hours were passing as I realized how badly I would miss her too. She knew me better than anyone ever had; she had been the only person I let in. I never realized that I would ever have these feelings for her, for having to leave her. There was a knife in my chest as I'd asked her to come with me, to leave all this behind and come follow my dream, and maybe have a fresh start for hers. I had to ask, even though I knew she wouldn't, and here I was now regretting my foolish hope.
"It's…unfair...of you to …cry, this was never serious for…"she cut me with those words, but she was hurting probably even worse just for saying them, since she reached up and covered her mouth with her hand and a fresh torrent of tears overran her eyes once more.
"I really wish you were coming, that you…you could… let go of the…," I felt my heart failing in my chest and my own tears now burning as the words became an overwhelming avalanche of truth, "…the hope of her ever being yours alone and now I'm just jealous, because she'll always have that and you."
She looked at me, removing the hand from, covering her mouth, and taking my face into her hands she placed gentle kisses as my words kicked her squarely. It felt so good to feel her soft loving kisses covering my face, neck, and chest. I nearly lost my train of thought because of how good it felt.
She reached to touch me, not to appease me, but to share the pleasure and pain with me. I couldn't resist her touch, I never could, she'd become the lover I would have keep my bed warm for the remainder of our lives. She truly did know me; I had to tell her everything before that last chance was gone.
As she tried to slowly tempt away my fear and my hurt, it was then that I let it all go.
"Just stop please, please, I need you to know…I've been serious, longer than you I believe. You walked into my arms and lay in my bed and never once did I think this would happen. I love you…you are the greatest gift of my short life. I thank each and every deity in the many Heavens that you became the person that learned who I was, learned to know me, to love me. You are the healing I've needed and I thank you and for every time we've ever shared this singular moment, I wish I had the words, I don't. All I have now is all I've ever had, this…"
And with that declaration we loved again and again, for the last time of our lives. As I walk down the gate passage to my plane, she is one of the three faces that wait until the door closes. I look into my phone and see her disheveled bed head from this morning and wish halfheartedly that the plane would never leave the ground. I looked into her eyes one last time before settling in for the long flight and thinking of the price of dreams fulfilled.
