Hello, goodbye

It had taken them many situations to neglect of what always had been there. Friendship, something else, love, nothing else, all of it, none. A little on extremes, but who was to say exactly, except that it was there?

Then there finally came a day, a random day, in which he dared to ask what it was that she expected of him. Her eyes spoke before her mouth. She ignored the tears that were falling down both her cheeks, looked up at the clear, blue autumn sky, held his hands and as if possessed, professed words directly out of somewhere unknown to her: her emotions.

The glow of his eyes accompanied by a total lack of words, action or reaction allowed her to breathe again for she recognized she had been right about them, and about their story all along. She knew how he felt for she had once had the exact same stupid lack of reaction in the past and had regretted it up to that moment. Right now and then she understood what and how he felt and it all made sense. They both knew. He knew she understood him. She knew now that she understood them both.

There was joy, relief, irony, heartbeats and they felt as if just the two of them were around. Even the words had left them alone, for words are supposed to be useful, not to describe what is already obvious.

The relief was hers. She had finally said it. Not just to him; but to her as well. Hearing her own words was liberating. Funny how, at that moment, nothing else but emotion could make more sense in her logical mind.

The joy was his. It was clearly the most unexpected and yet, most beautiful feeling he had ever felt. Not just his towards someone, but also someone towards him. The package was beautifully wrapped and the content of the gift was also precious. He had never been presented with such a surprise. Yet the unknown could not be more perfect.

The irony was that neither felt fear. Given their story, fear should have been a present. Not today. In fact fear must have had matters of utmost urgency so as to miss this event. Some other emotion called fear later on and narrated the whole thing. Fear raised his right eyebrow while lifting the left corner of his lip. Fear always works with both extremes. Fear was always opposite. In that sense, fear quickly hung up the phone and worried about something else that could easily be taken care of for he knew these two would soon give him more work.

The agony and heartbeats were from both.

“Please don’t leave. Don’t say goodbye.”, one begged in mind.

“Don’t say hello. Don’t. Unless you really are to stay.”, the other felt in soul.

There. Right there fear was coming back with the extremes: same issues, same feelings but always working on counterparts. Leave, stay. / Mind, soul. / Hello, goodbye.

Reviews

[Sarah]

This is such an interesting piece that takes on moment and really puts the reader in the situation. You did such a wonderful job picking out the diverse emotions in that moment - the joys and fears alike.

As a reader, I had to go back and reread a few sentences a few times to understand the main idea. I think it is because there were a few sentences that were long and were characterizing multiple ideas at once. As a reader, I can only remember idea one idea at a time - so it breaks up the flow of the story.
Employing more active voice may also aid with clarity. The majority of the sentences were written in the passive voice (something I struggle with as well). As a reader, this can be confusing because it is hard to know right away what the subject of the sentence is.

Overall this is a powerful piece. I loved the duality of emotions. You really hit on something that is difficult to describe, but is ALWAYS present :)