realmof_themuse prompt 2009.6.A.4 [song]
I look in the mirror and all I see // Is a young old man with only a dream // Am I just fooling myself // That she'll stop the pain // Living without her // I'd go insane // Feel her breath on my face // Her body close to me // Can't look in her eyes // She's out of my league // Just a fool to believe // I have anything she needs // She's like the wind
The first time he had seen her, that was when he knew that he would do anything to be with her.
Her golden curls, her laughing green eyes and her mouth that was quick to move into a smile or let out a laugh when she found something funny. It didn't take him long to figure out that some of it was an act though, that some of it was a mask to hide something underneath; a pain that she didn't like to talk about beyond the fact that she had no one left. She never talked about her family; she only said that they were all gone and that she was as good as an orphan. He had thought she meant that she had no parents but it turned out that she truly had no family that could ever be found.
For some reason, that only made him want to love her more. He saw the silent plea in her eyes, the one that begged him not to make her fall in love with him but he never could dream just how deep the pain went. He only pursued her a little more with flowers and other sweet nothings. The first time he kissed her, it was like heaven to him as she was like the richest honey on his tongue and she was a small flame in his arms. When the walls started to come down, he revelled in it and he loved her a little more every day as she started to love him back. He ignored the little distance between them, the fact that she had secrets that she would never tell him.
It took three different times of asking her to marry him before she finally agreed, giving a muted laugh as she shook her head at his grand scheme to get her to say yes the third time and he ignored the slight worry that hid in her eyes when he slid the ring onto her finger. He was sure someone had hurt her along the way, someone had tainted her heart and she was afraid to give herself fully away.
Not that he would know it most days when he held her close or when he kissed her strawberry gloss covered lips that became a more tart flavor as she used lipstick when they got a little older. When he would wake up next to her, her golden curls soft and a little more wild from a good night's sleep. Whenever he held her close and felt her heated breath against his skin, especially when her breath quickened as his fingers found a spot on her body that made her react with darkening eyes and usually a firmer kiss.
But slowly the distance started to grow between them as he got older and she never seemed to age. He used to laugh and tell her that she had good genes. "You'd be surprised." She would always murmur with a weak smile before she found something else to do so that the conversation couldn't continue.
A little more, every day, the distance grew no matter how much he tried to keep her close. He started holding her a little tighter and she never complained, she never pushed him away but he could see it in her eyes. She wasn't there with him anymore, her mind was elsewhere and the worry that he used to see became pained resignation. He kept waiting for it, knowing that it would happen one day even though he asked her once to never leave him.
Every touch became painful, a little searing shot to his heart when he brushed his hands against her body and felt her still react but it wasn't the same. She never lingered like she used to, she never held on like she was scared to let go of him. Her kisses became a little more absent minded and she seemed to go to bed less. Some nights, she didn't join him in bed at all, citing that she just didn't need as much sleep as he used to.
So it shouldn't have been a surprise to him when he found her gone one morning. She wasn't standing in the kitchen when he walked downstairs, her eyes dancing as she handed him coffee and poked a little bit of fun at him for not being a morning person. Her light scent still surrounded him but all ready he was scared it was fading as he looked for her. He found her clothes still in their closet and their dressers but he knew that she wasn't going to come back for them. She had left her purse, complete with her identification and everything but the cash that she usually carried. She hadn't even taken her car, instead she had simply walked out of their life, fading like a ghost that had been living with him for the last couple months.
He stood quietly at the front door of their house, his eyes scanning the street in front of him as though that would give him an idea of which way she had gone. He felt a lump grow in his throat as the wind blew a little harder, chasing over the sidewalk and swirling around him; because for a moment, he could smell her perfume again. She didn't come around the corner and ask him what was wrong? She hadn't simply gone to take out the garbage.
She was simply gone.
He turned around then, his heart breaking a little as he walked into the house and shut the door. He saw similar green eyes then, perfectly framed by sweeping long lashes, set in a cherub face that looked a little confused. Her hair was a darker shade of gold, more like burnt honey as it framed the small face in loose curls. She had a sweet voice too, showing her confusion as she asked where her mother was and his heart would have been completely destroyed if it would have been for the fact that he needed to hold on for his child in his arms now.
"Mommy had to go away." He replied, keeping his voice a murmur so that she wouldn't hear the tears as she pressed her face against his shoulder. He looked to the picture hanging on the wall, a picture of all three of them together and even in the picture he could see the slight resignation.
She had always known she would leave him one day and he couldn't help but wonder why.