Drawing Conclusions

By: Leslie Li Hikida

            The clouds pulled back to wash warm sunlight over Megan’s face.  Her cheeks blushed and she felt some familiar heat, the heat she used to feel when Jeremy would look into her eyes, back when she was still welcome in his arms.  It would erase any worries and all her uncertainties could be lost, but now that he was gone – no – now that he had left, this brief moment of sunlit heat was all she had left to remind her.

            The breeze picked up and felt like Jeremy’s fingertips along her spine reminding her of the times when he would let her know of his presence by running a finger down her back.  It sent chills through her and she tried hard to remember that it was her goal now to forget everything about Jeremy.

            Megan looked up from the crack in the sidewalk she had been staring at and something caught her eye.  It was a little boy smiling.  His smile reached through her heart right to her center where the memory of the beginning of her and Jeremy’s relationship lived, back when they were still so innocent and untouched by hurt and sorrow.

            The little boy saw how solemn she looked and turned to run away.  Megan was anything but surprised.  She was used to these kind of quick, abrupt exits from her life.  She sat, fighting so hard to keep all of her thoughts away that she didn’t realize the clouds had covered the sun again and everything was now cast in a blue hue.  A tiny raindrop hit the sidewalk beside her feet, then one on her leg, then another on her arm, her face.  They represented the tears she had shed.  Every one was a prayer and a hope that he would come back and equally a fear that he would not.  It had been so long and even so, these memories were so vivid and real Megan wondered if she could reach out and touch them.

            Megan stood up and swore on every cloud in the stormy sky, on every jagged and sharpened edge of her broken heart that she was better than this.  Yes, maybe Jeremy was gone, but she was still here and that had to mean something.  The tablecloth had been pulled out from their table so swiftly that all the dishes were now shattered on the floor.  She would have to pick up every last piece, one by one.  She must clean up the mess he had made and show him – no – show herself that she did not need his gaze, his touch, any of these fallen tears.  She would fit the fragments back together and save them in her pockets for someone who deserved them, for someone who could give her the same in return.  Jeremy wasn’t the only one who would love her.