Some good Samaritan must have posted a sign at the end of the road warning potential passers by that imposing upon a heartbroken young man’s reflection could be dangerous. It was a crisp, bright beginning of what was sure to be another humid Alabama summer from where I sat. Wispy white cirruses that resembled thick clouds of chalk dust drifted slowly across a never-ending slate of bright blue, guided by a steady breeze that washed over me with the tenderness of a loving caress. The only company I entertained was the timeless −and in some ways comforting− sound of a rocking chair creaking back and forth over wooden parch slats. If someone had taken a snapshot of the moment, they might fancy it picture perfect, but they would be wrong, for the photograph would be incomplete without her perched beside me, a laughing smile on her face.

One of the things I remember most about her was the way she blindly went about the world, watching things turn to gold at the touch of her fingertips with childlike surprise. Perhaps she had starved on regret and doubt and despair upon seeing everything she once treasured unable to respond to her pleas for assurance that she wasn’t all alone in the world. Her curse, however, was not so much a choice as it was an unfortunate spell cast upon her by a sorceress named Fate. She mentioned to me at one point in time that she had always wanted to leave her mark on the world. Her Midas touch left an impression on me at the least, so possibly that much could satisfy her. Maybe if she had been willing to look more on the bright side of things…no, she had finally found a way to escape from her prison of rolling hills and endless blue skies. There was nothing I could do now to change that.

It seems so easy now to admit that I loved her, but it didn’t seem fair to cement my feelings for her in the past. I still love her, just as I still can’t remove her image from my mind. The scene replayed over and over before my eyes: her, walking dejectedly down the sunlit hallway, running away from everything. Me, choking on the same words that slipped so easily off her tongue. Her, closing one of life’s many doors with one last look back. Maybe she thought a man of gold was incapable of returning her love. Maybe that was why she finally gave up trying.

I wondered why I loved her so much, or if there was ever anything to love about her in the first place. I had watched her get drunk from bottles of sorrow on countless occasions. I’d had to deal with her hangovers of lingering heartbreak at the most inopportune times. I tried to help her get over her addiction to everything that had happened in the past, but she always refused to let it go. There didn’t seem to be much to envy about her, and yet I couldn’t help but
do it. She was perfection in its most warped and twisted of forms.

There was a day when I found myself walking alone to the river, only to find myself standing just beyond the threshold of trees, watching a family picnic on the bank. The young girl, a pretty little red head in a flowery sun dress, crept up behind who I could only assume was her older brother, stealthily removing a bright blue cap from atop his head. He chased her around the shoreline a little bit until he had successfully wrested from her the plastic beads wrapped around her tiny wrist. Trailing behind him as he walked away, the girl would wave the hat in air tauntingly while trying to figure out a way to recover what was hers without sacrificing her steal. That’s how she and I were. She had captured my old, care-free lifestyle, while I had taken possession of her fragile heart. It was always a power struggle, both of us wanting to keep what we had taken control of while striving to regain what was rightfully ours. Or maybe, like the boy and his sister, we were impressionable and easily convinced by a wise third party to compromise.

“Zach?” she questioned, her voice shaky and uncertain. As she stood there nervously on the steps of my front porch, it seemed so strange to me that the last time I had seen her was in the hospital waiting room cradling herself and whispering unconvincingly to the floor that everything would be alright.

“You okay?” I ventured to ask, being the first response that popped into my head. I could have smacked myself for being so stupid, of course she wasn’t okay. It was obvious in her red, puffy eyes and the way she was squeezing the usefulness out of the pack of pocket tissues in her hands. It was in the way her bottom lip quivered as she spotted the article with her best friend’s face smiling brightly back at her in black and white newsprint on my lap. In truth, I wasn’t at all fine either, but it seemed to make sense that out of the two of us, I should be the strong, supportive one.

She shook her head silently no and shut her eyes tightly, visibly trying to hold back a fresh wave of tears, a fight she was going to lose miserably. I stood and crossed to where she slumped on the railing, wrapping her in what I hoped would be a comforting hug. My shoulder was quickly dampened by her tears and my body gently shook with her choking sobs. I suddenly became aware of her arms snaking around my waist −something very uncharacteristic of her−, but I tried my best to shrug it off and focus on calming her down.

“I miss her so much,” she croaked hoarsely.

“I do too,” I agreed, slowly being overcome by the sadness I had tried to put away after the funeral.

“I love you Zach,” she whispered rather unexpectedly, catching me by surprise. I tried to figure out all the possible thoughts scrambling around in her mind, only to find I had many of my own to deal with before trying to analyze anyone else’s.

Add up an entire school year plus four very different people and it equals up to a roller coaster of emotion, deception, and confrontation. In the words of Forrest Gump, “shit happens”, and there’s really nothing you can do about it, but you can always try and make the best out of your situation. So I guess, looking back on it, I learned more about myself because of the people I met, and they all have an overdue thank you.

“I love you too,” I decided.