Word Count: 325
“No, it’s fine. I think you should go. It’s a great opportunity for your career.”
So I said. But what I wanted to tell her was, Please don’t leave. I don’t think you’ll ever come back and I can’t go there with you.
She believed that I meant it, that I wanted the best for her and never gave a thought to myself, never a doubt about our relationship being strong enough to tether the worlds separated by thousands of miles. But I did have my doubts about how she would change once she got there. How Paris can swallow an artist and take over her soul. How beautiful she was and how I still couldn’t believe that she loved me and how I was sure she would find someone who would be more her equal, who had the passion for living and confident bravado I really believed would set her afire.
So she went. She called every night for a while and sent photos via email of the beauty of a city she was falling in love with. I could tell too, that she’d formed friendships with a small group of other students studying abroad. And the man who popped into more and more of her pictures who she finally gave a name to: Andre.
I tried to send love through the wires, across the ocean and into her heart. But my smiling face soon began to look goofy even to me. By spring I was sure she’d moved on.
Since I was so scared to lose her since before she’d even boarded the plane, I had started to tape up my wounds, staunch the bleeding, from the very first night she was gone.
“Well great,” I said, “you’ll be home by the end of next week, that’s terrific. The year went by so fast.”
But what I wanted to tell her was, I’m in love with Lucinda. I didn’t believe you’d be back.
