Elias strummed the guitar and started humming along. Little by little actual words started flowing. He didn't sing any specific song. Just random words that came to him in the moment while he kept his eyes on the tree in the meadow.
That tree had grown a lot over the years since they were both 18 year old teenagers in love. Somewhere further up were their names carved into the bark. Maybe someday someone would see that heart with those two names inside it again.
Elias and Ethelyn.
He came there every year on this exact date. The date they carved those names. He had made her a promise back then on the last day they ever talked together that he would keep coming and keep waiting for her on this date.
Most years she came there too. He watched her from afar while playing his guitar to himself and making up songs about the lost love of a fairytale woman with long, sunflower blonde hair and a pair of emerald green eyes. He was always too far away for her to hear his songs. She knew he was there. She would look towards him and send him a smile, but she never walked over to talk to him.
He had watched how she changed over the years. New clothes every year. Sometimes a new boyfriend. One of them had been with her the last three years now. Maybe they were married by now. He didn't know. He didn't even know if any of those boyfriends knew about him or why they always had to take a walk in the meadow on this date. Despite her moving on and living her life away from him, she always felt the need to come back and see him, even though it was from afar.
"And as I drag my boots over the grass once again,
I see the shattered pieces of my heart still on the ground..."
He stopped singing when he saw her come walking. She was wearing a long, white and yellow checkered, flowy dress. The soft wind moved the dress to make it look like she floated over the meadow.
"Hello, Ethelyn," he said. "How have you been? Me? I haven't been so good. I still miss you. It's crazy that after all these years, I still can't seem to let you go."
She never heard any of the conversations he was having with her in his mind. Despite knowing that she had moved on and would never come back to him, he still put himself through this torture year after year.
"I see you're alone this year," he continued. "I'm sorry that you broke up. Maybe he wasn't the one after all."
He bit his lip when he saw the same man from the last three years come running. They were still together. He ran to her, grabbed her around the waist and kissed her before they started walking hand in hand over the meadow. She stopped at the tree for a moment, studying it like every other year.
"What do you tell him?" He asked. "You have to give him a reason for coming here to look at a tree every year."
She turned her head and looked up at him. Even from this distance he could see the smile she was sending him. His heart broke once again, knowing this was all he was ever going to get. A single smile. Only one smile every year. She looked away again and continued her walk with the man by her side.
"Goodbye, Ethelyn," he said. "I'll see you next year."
He waited until they were gone. Then he stood up with his guitar and dragged his worn out boots over the ground, stepping on the pieces of his broken heart that would always lie around this place.