One

          It isn’t because that there is someone else out there for her that is better than me. And it is definitely not because of the way she had ended it that morning when we broke up. But the fact that I have now totally lost her �" forever.

            The pain, the unexpected solitude, the river flow of longing, I don’t know how to depict it really. I could paint the sky of South Dakota or the sunrise above the falls, yet I could never sketch out how I feel right now. All I know is I’m completely damaged inside out, as though my entire innocent being was shattered mercilessly into pieces and there’s no way I could pick them all up and tape them back together. It’s beyond unimaginable for it to ever happen, for Millie to come running back to me and let her love me again like before.

            But I’m stuck in the after, reversed to a fully different future. I’d thought that my life would never come to this point, where my heart is being thrown high at the pitiless sky and my tears flood over the town of Yankton. No one would expect this anyway. Millie and I were like full-on Hollywood stars. Because that was really us �" a perfection, something to be talked about, and a love anyone could be envied of. I was holding on to the probability of us being together eternally, but I didn’t know she was losing her grip.

            This is me, intensified by the raw feeling of love, pain, and total foolishness of getting back what once was mine.

            I let out a puff of breath, my arms straining from clenching on the bow for over two hours straight and setting the arrows back against the string again and again. I pull it back, everything �" my rage, the anger for her and myself, the constant fear of living without her, and finally the arrow. I pull it back with such contented force that when I removed my hands to shoot the arrow to the target, it almost went halfway through the wooden circle.

            “Bulls eye.” I hear Daniel stand up from the bench, which gives me a sign to lower my arms at last. I feel my muscles pulse from near exhaustion and my back hurting more and more as I reach for last stretches and warm ups.

            “What’s wrong with you today?” he says, his hands on his hips for the third time this afternoon. He looks more like a Math teacher to me than someone who masters archery.

            “Nothing’s wrong, Daniel.”

            The sun starts to hide behind the endless rows of clouds and the sky had painted itself orange and purple altogether. I pack up my gears, still feeling his nosy eyes on me.

            “I don’t know about you, Philip, but I see that you’re not you right now.”

            “Don’t worry.” I force a smile. “Everything is under control.” I slip my bag over one shoulder and wait there for his unpredictable answer.

            “And you used to say that you’re not in command of yourself.” His eyebrows are now wa-a-ay up high on his forehead and his arms are now crossed. The west wind blowing his black hair out seems to add an effect on his almost realistic I’m-a-pretty-much-serious-teacher-and-I-should-know-everything-about-you demeanor.

            “It looks like you haven’t seen anyone changing moods for at least a day.” I stated, nearly sounding impatient.

            He shakes his head a little, his lips pursed in with disbelief. “Nope. And you had more than twenty Bulls eye shots. I don’t think that’s the Philip I know. Or the Philip I used to teach. I have no idea where you got your skills, Phil. Or at least where this unplanned phenomenon came from.”

            I shrug a slight movement of my shoulders, tired of moving any more inches of my body, and walk across the grassy field, towards the open fence. I raise a hand up to him and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then!” without looking back.

            I was almost at the wooden gate when I hear him shouting, “And make me believe that you’re not worrying as you score a thousand?"

            This time, I turn around and playfully point at him, yelling back, “You bet!”