//June 5th (Revised)

Why I had the sudden urge to finally edit this after so many months (story dates back to May '09), I don't know. Maybe another deliberate distraction? Anyway, here it is: the last, err, decent thing I was able to write. I curse this slump to oblivion.


I still think I should replace the title. Thoughts?

***


It is a Wednesday afternoon, and it is raining.

In spite of now being soaked, David stands firmly on an open field, holding a bouquet of lilacs tentatively in his arms. He has been speechless for minutes now. Clearing his throat, he decides to break the eerie silence.

“I brought you your favorite flowers,” He begins quietly, and she says nothing. He thinks he sees the beginnings of a smile, but only her olive green eyes express any kind of joy. She always had kind eyes.

Suddenly she asks, “How’ve you been doing, David?”

This voice seems unreal to him for a while, but he concludes it is because he hasn’t heard it in too long. Immediately, he responds. “Terrible,” He knows she sees it in him—the regret. He doesn’t bother hiding it.

Isabelle had never done anything wrong. She doesn’t deserve this.

“I miss you, Iz,” He breathes deeply, taking in the heavy scent of the rain. It felt like peace, and was helping the truth come out. “Everything’s different without you. I don’t want to get used to it. I won’t.”

Isabelle looks down at the puddles by David’s feet—droplets slipping off of the flowers. “You don’t know that, David.”

And she holds that gaze, avoiding him.

This Isabelle—the one overcome with sadness—reminded him so much of the things he had done to her; given his own wife so much heartache in the past. There was nothing he could do now to reverse things, even if every inch of his body desired to.

He blinks back tears, each one a sting of regret, and says what he’s been trying to all along. “I’m sorry, Iz—for all of it.”

She looks up at him, listening, even though what he uttered would silence her heart permanently. “I should have never caused you this much pain,” David continues, shaking. He is breaking apart right before her eyes.

She feels, at this moment, that it is time to free him of this pain. She knows what would end it; what it would take for David to accept their past before she left.

Smiling, she presses her palm to his face. David is overwhelmed at her touch, after having feared it would elude him for the rest of his life. Yet here it was, for one more time, foreshadowing the words he never thought he would hear. “I forgive you,” She tells him, completely certain.

David smiles for the first time in weeks, both relieved and grateful that he had this moment with her. Because he knew that, like the past they shared and ultimately forgave, it would not last.

So as she lets go of him, he understands.

“Goodbye, Iz.” He says as he watches her finally fade into the sunlight peeking through the gray sky.

When she’s gone, David carefully sets down his wife’s favorite flowers on her tombstone, and walks away.

-Megu