Farewell

We were sitting next to each other on the warm, old sofa that had probably been there since even before neither of us was born, staring at the television. It was some kind of a reality show, but neither of us was really watching it. We were just looking at the fast-moving pictures, the sounds it made we didn't really register.

He then held my hand. His felt so warm and welcoming, making me want him to never let go. "Dana," he called my name. He sounded like he never did before: silent, almost like a breathless whisper. But I could still sense the familiarity of the voice: its calmness, and that it knew what it wanted. He was sure of what he wanted to say. He made sure of that.

At first, I only looked at our hands--his big hand lovingly secured my fragile one--and then, after I broke free just to intertwine our fingers so it would feel more complete--more us--I looked up at him and waited.

For a couple of seconds that felt like long hours of self-convincing, he finally said it. "I want you to leave," he said, finally sounding like himself, trying to once again convince himself that this was right, this was what he wanted, "with me. I want you to run with me to a place where we can be together, as ourselves, for as long as we want to."

I guessed I had been expecting it, but the reality of it took me aback still. I saw his seriousness in his dark, brown, mesmerizing eyes, and that made me quiver. I understood him. I wanted this as badly as he did. I wanted desperately to scream agreement, pull him into a hug and let him kiss me, feel excited. I could see it clearly: our future together, living under one roof, sharing happiness in an eternity that was ours. Only me and him. I wanted to reach out and grab that image so badly it hurt.

But then it dawned on me that that would just be it: an image of the future we could never have. We both knew this. It was not going to happen. We lived in two different worlds, literally, and we should not have even met each other at all, because of the way the worlds worked. It felt wrong and unfair, but that was the truth. We could never be together.

I let go of his hand and turned away. It hurt. The pain felt too real in my chest that it felt like my heart would burst. I shook my head slowly. "I can't," I whispered, using all my strength to fight back the tears I didn't know I was holding that I didn't have enough energy to speak properly.

I couldn't bring myself to see his face, no matter how hard I tried, for the last time. I stood up, and after seconds of gritted teeth and gnawing pain and betrayal, because the worlds were unfair, because all of this happened to me, and to him, and that it was inevitable that I was going to hurt him, and myself, I said slowly, only barely audible to him, "I have to go."

And as I walked out of the room, I didn't have anything left to keep my tears from flowing down my cheek.