March 18, 2009

 

Write about someone trying to convince another person

to do something they both know is wrong.

Her hair is brushed back into a fresh ponytail. The lingering wafts of her shampoo – of macadamia and sweet almond oil – fills the inside of her car in complete raptures.

As she pulls up outside his house, she smoothes out the creases in her khaki linen trousers and straightens her paper-thin thermal. Seductively uncomplicated. Minimalist was seldom her aesthetic but tonight she is making an exception. He always liked her hair worn up. He liked simple.

The passenger door opens and he slides in seamlessly, as he has always done for so long. In the still of the night, awkward smiles are exchanged and niceties are muttered to one another. She wants to tie loose ends. Orchestrate some closure. Latch onto anything that could possibly get her through the first break-up in the history of her saccharine 24 years.

They make the brief drive to a beautifully ostentatious park – a place where it all transpired a mere eight years ago, and now a place that will make it difficult to conjure fond memories for them both ever again. The park is a vision in the twilight. Winding pathways negotiate their way past ponds and lakes; frangipanis and hibiscus blooms litter manicured gardens.

September has an audacity to presume that everything is coming up roses.

But therein lies cruel contrast. The harmonious crooning between ducklings and pelicans punctuate the audible silence in the car. It’s been three weeks since she mustered the strength to walk away from him for the final time. Their minds are weary, and it’s hard to imagine that there are any words left to be spoken. But their hands know not the touch of anybody else’s and their lips have been taught to know only one another’s. And that is the hardest to walk away from.

She looks tenderly into his hopelessly abashed eyes and searches for meaning.

She bargains.

“I see it now. I finally understand you. I wasn’t the best girlfriend, but I have learnt why.”

He buries his head in his hands. She knows what he’s thinking: how ironic that some things can only come to light in the aftermath of a tragedy.

He resurfaces and turns towards her.

“I don’t know what to do.”

She nods in sad congruence. Sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same. But still, she keeps a tight hold on the torch. For the eight years they took for granted. For the next fifty years they had been planning. For the family they were hoping to build. For the tomorrow they thought they always had.

“I’m waiting for the day I can wake up and just know what I want.”

They look to the moon as it dances across the ebony midnight sky, leaving a luminescent trail upon the dashboard. The uncertainty is debilitating. He is still so madly in love with her. He still contends that she is a perfect rarity; a breed so inconceivable that it hurts.

“I don’t think I’ll ever find anybody else like you.”

Without saying a word, she throws her arms around him and gives him the hug that was meant to happen the night she walked away. There is apology in her grasp; and sadness and despair in the embrace. But they find home in this hug, and for a moment, it is like the way it was. The way it should be.

How did everything become so complicated that love could no longer save the day? Which fool declared that love can conquer all?

They finally break free from their beautiful connection. She pleads with her eyes to have him remember these moments and the promises they made to one another. Most of all, she wants him to forget the hurt she inflicted and the ways she made him feel so unloved.

“I’ve discovered right from wrong. I’ve learnt so much about myself, about you, about us. I only wish I knew this three weeks ago.”

Pleading.

“I am so sorry I hurt you. If you ever give me another chance at this, we could be different…better.”

But it is all in vain. He places his hand on hers.

“I want to be with you. Just not right now.”

“How do I know that giving it one more try is going to make us work.”

“I don’t think I can give you what you want.”

He loves her so madly and so deeply but sadly she will never know how much.

All she knows is that his incisive words speak the brutal truth.

He is right, ever so logical, so effortlessly pragmatic. She is affecting, impassioned and irrational. And now a beautiful stranger he will no longer spend the rest of his life with.

They sit in pensive silence, ambitiously hoping an epiphany would occur any second now so as to quash the heartbreak.

Shadows meander through the darkness outside. The moon overwhelms the twinkling smattering of stars who struggle to know their worth.

As she pulls her hand away from his, she fiercely tries to grasp the remains of this closure.

And this time, she watches him walk out of her life, permanently.

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