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My heart stutters as she stands in front of me, arms open. Waiting, as if she had all the time in the world for me to run into her embrace. My throat closes with emotion, too much yet not enough as I feel my cheeks get wet. My hand reaches up, wiping my face messily with the sleeve of my hoodie as my eyes drift away from her only for a second. I notice her face; a goofy yet soft looking smile plastering itself across her face like it belonged there. Her eyes are glistening like she’d been waiting for me this whole time, it strikes something fragile in my chest. I can feel it swirl around inside me, thrashing and twirling like it’s trying to escape and run to her. I let out a pathetic, wet sob as I take off sprinting into her open arms. The impact is brutal but honest as it takes us both to the ground. We land tangled in each other’s arms on the soft, slightly wet grass of the field we were in. More sobs tear through my chest as I clawed at her, desperately trying to make sure she was real, that she wasn’t about to leave me alone again.
“You left me. You promised, you promised me you were going to stay.” My voice cracks between words, but still full of forgotten emotions,
“You have no idea; I thought you had died. I thought I would never get to see you again, or speak to you, or hear your laugh, or your voice.” She only hugs me tighter, pushing my face into the crook of her neck as she threads her fingers softly through my tangled locks. One hand is running through my hair as the other attaches itself tightly around the small of my back, pulling me closer to her. This only makes me sob harder, my tears now flowing without caring down my cheeks and soaking the soft fabric of the shirt she’s wearing. My fingers grip her shirt so hard my knuckles begin to turn white from the shear amount of strength I’m using. After a while my sobs finally start to become less frequent, this is when I finally hear her speak,
“I had to leave; I had to save you.” She whispers, voice taught and rough with sadness,
“Leaving you was the only way they would spare your life, and if I had to choose again, I would choose the same every time.” She brings her hand from my hair down to my face to cup my cheek, bringing my face up from her neck. She runs her thumb softly over the length of my cheek in soothing circles, effectively making me fall in love with her all over again. Still, I can feel my eyes start to water again,
“I just... I just wish you had given me something, something to show me that you were still alive. Something that would’ve made our time apart easier to bear, my love.” My voice grows soft, a frown now forming on my lips. I bring my hands up to rest on her neck, lacing my fingers at the back of it.
“I know, Baby, trust me, I know. It took everything I had to restrain myself from seeing you or from sending anything. I was scared they would find you if I did.” She started to sniffle; I could see the tears starting to build up in her eyes and fall down her already red cheeks. I lean forward connecting our lips in a soft, hesitant kiss. It was brief and mostly a brush of lips until she cups both of my cheeks and pulls me back in again, and this time the kiss is desperate. This one is filled with unsaid feelings and bottled-up emotions from the past decade we were apart. I can feel my own tears start to flow again, mingling with hers as we separate; only for a quick breath of air before we connect once more. We kiss once more before she pulls away, her yearning gaze making me want to kiss her again. I choose not to act but reflect with the same emotion and longing she feels for me. I let out a wet laugh, sniffling as I feel my eyes start to dry and the exhaustion of finally seeing her after all this time sets in.
“I love you; I love you so much it hurts.” Her breath ghosts my face as I lean down, resting my forehead on hers. After we both catch our breath, I sit up, finally, and help pull her up with me as I do. As we both sit up, she releases my face and lets her hands rest loosely around my waist as I straddle her, comfortably wrapping her up in a hug once more.
“I can’t explain to you in words how much I’ve missed the feeling of your hands in mine, and the sound of your voice after I’ve told a particularly bad joke.” My breathing stutters as I stumble through my words,
“I’ve been waiting, I never once gave into the belief that you were gone forever. Sure, there were days it plagued my thoughts that maybe you were truly gone, and I had lost the love of my life forever, but I fought off all of those thoughts.” My hands trace patterns into her back as I finish my ramble, a comfortable silence resting in the space surrounding us. After the moment of silence passes, I feel her hands tighten around me and I let out a quiet sigh of relief. The feeling of her touch helps ground my wandering mind as I finally come to process what just happened. She’s finally back. She’s finally back in my arms, safe and alive. I think, gazing over her shoulder noticing the sun now beginning to darken the sky with dark oranges and reds. I take a deep breath, watching as the sun sets, casting lovely shadows across the landscape, making me think back to the days when we first met.
I was young, stupid, and unexplainably bad at making good decisions while she was perfect, poised, never a hair out of place. She always had this way of carrying herself with such order and sturdiness that I couldn’t help but be drawn into her orbit. Even though I was always doing something wrong or speaking a little too opinionated she never showed me indifference. She never looked at me with the bitterness and alienation that I had felt among our peers. She was my constant, the stars to my endless sky, the soft breeze that ruffled my feathers.