Lost in the ether
His heart pounded in his chest. Like a sledgehammer would break cement walls and how he wished for his ribs to break. Never a day, an hour, a minute or a second did his heart not react of the thought of the girl he left behind.
He leaned against the glass of the phone booth. With sorrowful eyes he gazed at the blond girl who stole his heart in high school. The girl he shared his lunch with daily. The girl he always sat beside in the library, gazing up at her quizzical face as she solved the mathematics problems. He knew in his junior year he loved her. He treasured her greatly. He cherished her more than the air he breathed. His lunch didn't taste as good if he didn't share it with her.
But he was a coward.
And now it was too late.
She sat on a bench with her half-eaten sandwich at display. Her friends Tsubaki and Patty sat in front of her and beside her… sat her boyfriend. A guy with blond hair and blue eyes. His arm was wrapped around her they shared small loving gazes at each other. He picked up her sandwich and took a bite out of it before he laid it down on the plastic.
She giggles at something he said with his mouth full and elbowed him in the side before she planted a kiss on his lips.
His heart twisted with pain and his hand automatically clasped his hurt through the uniform of every shade of green.
"I'm a fool." He spoke into the grey phone. "I'm a coward." His nails dug into the fabric. "What did I expect? After three and you'd still be waiting for me?" He sighed and closed his eyes. "I knew I should've said something. Confessed my feelings. I knew I should've taken you to prom. Should've dressed up in those ridiculous monkey costumes and confessed my love for you in those corny fashions I knew you secretively loved." He opened them and gazed back at his love who smiled largely toward Tsubaki to then burst out laughing.
"I knew my last chance for you to know was in the airport, but I was a fool in love with the balls of an ant. Those years I served, I spent every day thinking of you. Fighting for you. You were my courage, my strength and my desire to return home alive." He bit his lower lip and to his dismay, his heart pounded just as strongly for her as it did his senior year of high school. "And now when I'm here, I was a fool thinking that no contact in three years and you'd still be waiting for me." He paused and felt the item in his pocket weight heavily. "I'm not mad. It was expected. I mean, it wasn't like you'd go on every day loving me like I love you without knowing if I was alive or dead."
His hand dug into his pocket and retrieved the banana and placed it on the payphone. "You've found someone because I was a fool for not even confessing my feelings. For not even finding out if you felt the same. I know that guy has to be a good one because you only deserve the best." His fingers slipped from the yellow fruit and gripped the side of the payphone. "Not a man like me. I hope you get your happy ending you deserve just like in those chick flicks you adore. I'm going back again. This time I may not be as lucky." He hung the phone on its original place. With one last glance toward the girl he loves, he exited the phone booth and headed toward the car to return to his duties.
On the banana he left behind he'd scribbled "I'm bananas for you" with a sharpie, which would never be given to the girl who stole his heart.