by H G Lynch
Very softly, he said her name, trying to get her attention. He saw her shoulders tense at the sound of his voice, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t even hesitate in her packing.
“Ember,” he tried again. She didn’t react at all. “What’s going on?” he asked. His spazzing brain had decided to stop processing information and he couldn’t figure out what she was doing, what she was planning, why her side of the room was bare of books and posters and her perfumes.
At last, she deigned to recognize his presence, and later, hours later, he would wish she hadn’t bothered because then he wouldn’t have had to hear her next words, the words which would haunt him as much as any other memory. “I’m going home, Reid,” she said, her voice so soft it was an ache in his chest.
“Home?” he repeated dumbly. The word didn’t have any meaning to him right at that moment. It echoed in his ears with each painful beat of his pulse. He stared at her in numb sort of confusion. She didn’t looked at him, just kept shoving clothes into her suitcase with increasing force.
“Yes, home. To Scotland. I’m applying to go to college in the autumn.” Slowly her words began to take on meaning, painting pictures in his head. She was leaving.
“But…what will you do until autumn?” he asked, his voice dead. Panic was starting to tighten around his chest, squeezing his organs, squeezing the life out of him. She was really leaving. But she couldn’t leave. It…she just couldn’t.
Carelessly, she shrugged her slight shoulders. “I’ll get a job, go back to the riding school…work on forgetting.” Her voice was steady and dull, as if she were simply talking about homework. Her shaking hands were the only sign that she wasn’t completely calm.
As if from a distance, Reid heard himself saying, “What about Sherry? You’re just going to walk away from your best friend?”
At that, he saw her shoulders tense, heard her take a deep breath to steady herself, and it was a long moment before she answered but her voice was no longer calm. It trembled and rose in pitch as she spoke. “We’ll keep in touch. We’ll still be best friends.” She crumpled a shirt in her hand. Despite hearing the evident pain in her voice, the tears she was trying to suppress, something made him keep pressing her.
“And what about Ricky and Cris? And Hiro? You’re leaving them, too, you know.” Maybe if he could make her feel guilty enough, she’d stay. It was a nasty thing to try to do to her, but he’d do anything to keep her here.
“I’ve got Ricky’s number, and Cris’s email address,” she said quietly.
“And Hiro?” Reid pressed, “He’s bound to you. You dragged him out here and now you’re abandoning him,” he accused, his pulse throbbing in his temples, everything blurring before him. Part of him knew this wasn’t helping, knew it was too late, but he had to try, dammit! She just couldn’t leave him!
“Hiro understands, and he’s a Kitsune; he can come visit me anytime he wants.” She had an answer for everything, like she’d expected this and calculated her responses word for word. She still had her back to him, but she’d stopped packing. Instead her fingers were clenched tightly on the zip of her suitcase, her knuckles turning white.
When he spoke again, Reid’s voice cracked but he didn’t care. “And what about me? You’re just going to walk away and forget I existed? You know as well as I do that you won’t be able to forget.” He gave a humorless chuckle that sounded more like a sigh of agony.
Hesitantly, she finally turned to look at him and everything else in the room faded away. All he could see was her. She stood there like a broken angel, with her golden hair shimmering like spilled caramel and her fair skin splattered with delicate freckles, and her soft mouth pulled down and quivering. She seemed to glow with a faint light, shining like a bright firefly in the darkness. But it was, as always, her eyes that shattered him. Her sweet blue eyes were brimming with tears, the blue drenched with pain and sorrow, guilt and regret. She stared at him with those eyes, long and hard, crumbling the last shreds of hope he’d been clinging to. It was like his heart was breaking all over again.
Her voice, when she spoke, was a raw whisper, concealing none of her agony. “It’s all I can do to try, Reid. I have to try and forget. Because remembering…” She pressed her lips together and shook her head, spattering glimmering tears, “Remembering just hurts too much.” With that, she turned and zipped her suitcase shut, heaved it off the bed. She dragged it toward the door and stopped when she reached him. Swallowing, she put down the suitcase and he watched her dig in her jeans pocket for a second. When she pulled her hand out again, there was a fine gold chain looped through her fingers and in her palm lay the firefly pendant he’d given her. The sapphire sparkled like a single tear immortalized in crystal.
Numbly, Reid held out his hand and she dropped it into his palm, where it winked mockingly at him. It felt like he was breathing razorblades, cutting their way down his throat and shredding his lungs. Then Ember stepped forward and put her arms around him tentatively. Reid’s breathing hitched, his eyes falling closed as he inhaled that sweet grapefruit and sandalwood scent of her skin. For a moment, the feeling of her soft little body in his arms again made his heart spasm and eased the agony burning inside him.
But, all too soon, she stepped back from him and looked up at him with tears rolling down her cheeks. She was so, so beautiful he could hardly stand to look at her but he couldn’t bear to blink, knowing this would probably be the last time he ever saw her.
“Goodbye, Reid,” she whispered, placing a light, lingering kiss on his cheek. And then she picked up her suitcase and was gone.
Without thinking, Reid went to the window. He watched her hug her mother, pile her suitcase into the Mazda, and slide into the backseat.
It was only as the car was pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road that she looked back up and saw him watching. From this distance, with his vision blurred with unshed tears, he couldn’t make out her expression. With his heart in tatters, he watched the only girl he’d ever loved – probably the only girl he would ever love – disappear beyond the trees and the stars.
Just as he was turning away from the window, ready to fall to pieces, he heard her voice whisper in his mind, just three words:
I’ll miss you.
