The moon reflected off of her radiant skin, the seeping light almost seeming hollow. Her wearisome footsteps came to a halt. Breathing only made the agonizing silence louder. Echoing through the deserted tunnels in her mind. How she wished she could crawl into the silence and never return, to cease to exist. She felt his familiar touch on her shoulder and didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to feed her mind another image of his face to haunt her with. The silky breeze caressed the strands of her hair as he said her name. Her name had never sounded so perfect. The rhythm of his voice flowing lightly from his lips, the lips she had known more intimately than anything else in this world. She wanted to keep walking as she felt the stinging tears in her eyes. Why was he doing this to her? Wasn’t one goodbye enough? The goodbye? Goodbye. That word had never as much to her as it did on this night. She never knew one word could cut her so deeply, down to her very soul. She heard his voice again. Oh, that voice. The voice she fell asleep to every night. The voice that carried her through her days. That voice, so calming, so deep. She had heard every word he spoke clearly, but couldn’t comprehend them. It was a meaningless blur that she didn’t want to understand. She had been still, not moving the slightest bit since she stopped walking. She felt immobile, trapped inside a pile of dead weights resembling a female body. A teardrop fell to the pavement, and she fell with it as dropped to her knees. Her face buried in the cradle of her trembling arms. The impact sent sharp pains shooting up her kneecaps, but nothing could compare to what she felt in her heart. More damage had been done in the last eleven minutes than she ever thought possible. She didn’t want to look up, didn’t want him to see the mascara streaks on her face. Another teardrop on the pavement. She knew she should say something, anything. The silence was growing increasingly unbearable. After a few moments of consideration, the words escaped her mouth. The silence that followed was a blade to her heart. Why wasn’t he responding? Despair turned to anger as she threw herself off the ground and screamed the words, her tears relentless. She turned to see his face, and nothing but the night sky surrounding her. He was gone. She hadn’t noticed his hand leaving her shoulder. How long had he been gone? Maybe he was never really there at all. Her lips were heavy with the words he never heard.
                                                                      “I love you….”