Never Goodbye

I wrote this a few years ago, during one of those inspirational moments when I felt like I could write something really incredible. Now you be the judge.

 

And so this is my life now, she sighs. Here I am. Two days away from the end of my first year of college. Do you realize that ten years ago I was nine?

 

She asks me this rhetorically, of course, but in all honesty, I can't picture her being nine years old. But she continues anyway speaking of the charms of the third grade and how she didn't have any friends. I want to feel sorry for her but I don't because she's too beautiful. You can't feel sorry for beautiful girls like her.

 

I've never had friends like the ones that I have here, she tells me. They say that in college you meet your soul mates. Do you think that I'll be friends with them in ten years? When I'm 29?

 

I can't picture her being 29.

 

I'll be married, she says. Well, actually, I don't know that but it's my guess. Maybe I'll have a kid or two. Oh my God.

 

And then she falters and brings her hand to her chest as if she's having a heart attack. Can you believe this? I'm getting so old.

 

And she's only nineteen. Nineteen. If you say it two or three times, it's not really that old.

 

Anyway, she says. This is my life. An endless cycle of scheduled TV programming, weekend parties in a crowded dorm room, and homework that doesn't really challenge me. It's like high school only better. And all of the people are nicer. More mature.

 

And then, for the first time in twenty minutes, she stops talking. Over the engine’s hum of my good for nothing car, I can hear her breathing. Quiet. Soft. And I look at her in the corner of my eye and wonder where the hell she came from. Who is she? Why does she want me?

 

Sometimes I forget how to breathe, she tells me. Not right now. But sometimes… I can’t remember the steps that I have to follow to take a breath. It’s not even a physical thing. I feel it emotionally too. Like everything that’s been handed to me is too much to handle… too much to swallow and I can’t do it.

 

I know exactly what she means and it terrifies me. I fear having too many things in common with her. That never worked out for me in the past. She looks at me then and she smiles, her lips curling over her not-so-straight teeth. Her eyes find mine and they dance in the fading daylight. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to wake up and she’ll be gone.

 

What am I going to do without you this summer? she asks. Without school, without my friends? I feel like I’m going to forget my breath so often that the recollection will be completely wiped from my mind.

 

I feel like I should say something then but I’ve never been much for talking. I just look back at the road as I drive. My eyes follow the tail lights in front of me. I stop at the red lights and accelerate on green and she stays quiet, pondering the answer to her own question.

 

I hope August comes quickly, she says. I guide my car around the corner, the last turn of our journey. Within one minute she will leave my car and walk into the dorm room. I may lose her forever.

 

Promise me that you’ll write she says as I pull into the parking lot, shift the car into park. I look at her and her eyes are alight with hope and promises. Five months ago I would have passed her on the street without even so much as a second glance but now she was my best friend, my soul mate.

 

Promise me that you won’t forget me.

 

It must be terrible to be so deprived, I think. Had she really never had any friends before? What was she going home to now? An empty house? I want so badly to just wrap her in my arms and keep her there forever, hold her until she’s confident that she will never again be left alone or unloved.

 

I won’t forget I tell her, speaking my first words of the night. Mostly I’ve just been listening, keeping her voice inside of my head so that I won’t forget her. She has a way of keeping me quiet. She can have full conversations with me and I don’t even have to speak a word. She does all of the talking and I just listen.

When I come back in three months, will you still be here? she asks. I wish that she would just trust me. Trust that she means as much to me as I do to her. She always thinks that everyone is going to leave her. I want to hate her for her insecurities but I can’t. I can only love her. What other choice do I have?

 

I’ll be here I say and she smiles, reaches over the console and pulls me into her arms. I can smell her hair. Pantene Pro-V. I’ve seen it in her shower. She draws away and then kisses my cheek, her lips soft.

 

Can you believe that this is good bye? she asks me. I shake my head.

 

Only good night I answer. Not good bye.

 

Never goodbye she says with a smile. And then I watch her as she leaves my car and pulls away from me, walking through the dark towards her dorm building. I put the car in drive and slowly I back track my way out of the parking lot. She fades away behind me but I know that I’ll see her again.

 

Reviews

[Kate]

I thought I'd read some of your work today :)

Just so you know, this is going to be a running commentary. First of all, I love the point of view. The narrator is, at this point, a mystery to us as far as his/her relationship to this girl and that gives us an interesting, almost detached view of what the girl has to say.

There are unbelievably gorgeous one-liners. Examples:
1. "She asks me this rhetorically, of course, but in all honesty, I can't picture her being nine years old. "
2. Sometimes I forget how to breathe, she tells me.

As for this nonsense with grammatical changes (ps, he misspelled "grammatical" just wanted to point out the irony in that ;)), I think it works better without the quotation marks. The reading is much more fluid and more more sentimental. It's as if our narrator is recalling this story to someone else. The tone is just beautiful.

Great work Heather.

[Ed Rector]

not bad. i encourage much more. possibly more detail but we all have are own style... needs gramatical changes besides that good job...