Goodbye

From Susan Crowley Forkey:

This collection of Sunday stories is based on the premise that we are all connected by a basic concept - humanity. What started out as simple Sunday Stories to highlight snapshots of lives has turned into so much more. It is our family album now.

THANK YOU SUSAN. Our family album. I love that.

Today's Story:

Goodbye

The phone felt heavy in her hands now, too heavy to hold.

"Are you still there?" he asked.

"I'm here," she whispered.

But she wasn't.

She was not there.

She was not gone.

She was not anywhere or anything.

Not anymore.

"Well, I'm glad you called. I'll talk to you soon okay?" he said, but he didn't mean it. He would not talk to her soon. He would not talk to her ever again.

This was the end. The real end.

"Goodbye," she breathed out, barely audible.

"Okay," he said. "Goodbye."

And then there was no sound and she waited and waited, but still there was nothing, and she looked at the screen on her phone and it said: Call Ended.

The call had ended. Everything had.

Everything had ended and she brought her knees to her chest and the phone to her forehead and she lowered her face into her hands, the cold screen of this last call pressing into her brow.

"Goodbye," she said softly, so softly. "I loved you so much. I'm sorry it was never right. I'm sorry. I will miss you now that you're finally gone. I will miss you, and me too."

And then she cried and she cried, tears that shook her whole body as they fell on her and soaked her skin and burned her with the pain of loss.

And then the phone rang and her heart raced and she pulled the screen from her forehead and looked and it was not him and it never would be. Ten years were gone and she'd have to let them go and she would. Someday she would let them go, but today she could only ache with a sorrow so deep she wanted to die from the grief of it.

That's how it hurts to be let go.

That's how it hurts; unwanted goodbye.