Lost Love

She stood in the rain.

She stood there in that parking lot, in the rain and cried, her own tears from her eyes, mixed with the tears from the heavens above.

The parking lot on this rainy dark day was empty when it should have not been. This seemed to be bittersweet to her.

She was alone. Not the kind of alone where she stood desolate in some faraway desert. Not the kind where she might have walked in an area late at night.

She was alone from herself, from those that cared and mattered to her. She didn’t feel the cold that she should have, but yet she shivered. She didn’t feel desperate, but she didn’t remember standing in that parking lot in the rain. She didn’t feel anything except being alone.

She lifted up her hand and wiped her face on her sleeve. She didn’t notice that her arms were soaked. Even if she did, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Nothing mattered anymore, not at this time, not at this place, not in this life.

She looked down and saw the water bouncing off the pavement, but didn’t remember what it was. She looked up and to the left of her, her eyes piercing into the gray, cloudless, rain soaked sky and saw nothing. She looked at her hand and didn’t notice it shaking, not realizing that it was not from the cold.

She thought of a love. A lost love. The name escaped her, the face eluded her memory, the smell of him dissipated into nothingness. All she remembered was a love.

A lost love.

She paused on what someone had said once. Someone much wiser than her, but at the same time, someone born and bathed in idiocracy.

“Its better to have loved and lost, then to never have loved before.”

She shook her head in disgust, her hair whipping around in the rain, clinging to her face, covering her eyes in a secret shroud.

The sudden movement sickened her, twisting her knotted stomach tighter, causing her to quench the pain, by clenching her fist.

She wanted to scream, to yell, to laugh, to cry more. She wanted to stop breathing and to breathe deep, taking all or nothing in. She wanted to run and seek and run and hide. She wanted to do something, she was sure of. She just wasn’t sure of what.

“What does that mean?” she started to hiss and ask. She wasn’t sure of who she was asking. Even if there was someone there, she was convinced that they wouldn’t have known the answer anyway.

Her pain, she remember, catching a quick memory, was him. He was all that mattered. His words, spoken and written. His movements, obvious and in secret. His thoughts, shared and kept silent. It was all him.

He had been her very existence. The good and the bad. The slow and fast times of her life. She breathed him, he breathed her. The loved and fought, and fought and loved. It was a perfect circle, no breaks, no stops.

But he left her and she cursed him.

He left her and she hated him.

He left her and she cried.

She didn’t know how long she had been crying. She didn’t remember how long ago. Time had paused and stopped and at times gone backwards. Her memories were erased by her memories. She didn’t want to know him, but she had to.

They had been together forever it had seemed like. Before birth, she was convinced.

But now she stood in the pouring, cold rain, in the middle of a parking lot and she didn’t remember how she got here. She didn’t remember where she was. She didn’t remember anything except he was gone.

She had looked for him, but her friends said he was gone and would not come back. It wasn’t her fault they would tell her.

She had yearned for him, but her parents said she would find someone else, because he wasn’t coming back. It wasn’t her fault they would tell her.

She had thought long and hard and tried to remember. She tried to remember certain colors that he liked and colors that she thought he should like. She tried to remember his sounds, his voice. She tried to remember what it was that she had memorized long ago. But she couldn’t.

All she could feel was this pain. This wet, cold pain. Her body was numb, but it hurt. Her feelings were numb, but the memory that escaped her, stung. She looked and thought and searched and felt.

But nothing.

Nothing but nothing. Her memory and feelings lay silent, playing a record-setting game of hide and seek. Every once in a while, a memory or feeling would feel a little bold and peek out and whisper. And she would look and think and search and feel.

And still, nothing.

She kept thinking. She thought of a movie of a pretty girl, sitting in the rain, holding a lifeless body. This girl in the rain, leaned down, her hair matted, and kissed the man that she held. She closed her eyes and cried. A small crowd, in the movie, gathered around and watched the pretty girl, crying, in the rain, holding the one that she loved.

She looked up and saw someone coming, the rain falling from their shoulder as the neared. She thought they looked familiar. Someone from her past. It wasn’t him. He was gone, he left her and she hated him for it. She thought maybe she was in the movie, and this was someone from the crowd.

But it was just her, the approaching one and the rain.

She looked up. The smile from the person that stood there gave her comfort. She knew this women. She reminded her of herself.

“Baby, it’s alright. Are you ok.? Your father and I were so worried when you left the house. I knew you would be here. You are going to be ok. It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done.”

The woman spoke, her words perfect, needed. Her voice, soft, reassuring. She knew who this was. She has known her whole life.

“Mom. Why?”

Her mom looked at her, her own eyes filled with tears, her faced streaked with makeup, her clothes wet from the rain. She looked at her daughter, lowered herself to her and cried. She wanted to help her daughter. She wanted to hold her and not let her go.

‘Things happen. You will be ok.’ She wanted to tell her daughter. She wanted to give her a reason why. She wanted to tell her that she would find someone else to love. She wanted to take her home, dress her in a flowered sundress, brush her hair and play tea time with her like so many years ago. But all she could do was cry.

The girl looked up at her mother suddenly and asked what her mother had been dreading. The one question she hoped to hear but not to hear.

“Mom, why is he gone? Wasn’t I good enough for him? I loved him with everything that I am and was. Now, why do I hate him so?”

Her mom watched as her daughter’s shoulders sank, the rain adding the extra weight upon her. Her daughter sat there, spirit broken, soul vacant, memory gone and life beaten. Her daughter was young as young goes. Thirty years on this planet, wrapped in decades and millenniums of season changes, is young.

“Baby,” she stammered, slightly hesitating, hoping that her daughter would change questions. Hoping that her daughter would suddenly remember why he left and would want to go on with her life. “I don’t know why things happen. I don’t know what to say. I know that you loved him so much and I do know that he loved you. He loved you more than I thought was possible. All he wanted was to make you happy.”

Her daughter looked up and brushed the hair from her eyes.

“But why did he leave me? He said he loved me. He left me mom. If you love someone, you don’t leave.”

She started crying again, sobbing and breathing, being held by her mother, sitting in an empty parking lot, in the pouring rain.

Her mom sat there, her eyes hurt from crying, from seeing her child in pain. She could only think of one thing to say. Everything else had been said.

“He didn’t want to leave.”

Her daughter opened her eyes. She could see the ground that she sat on. She could see the rain that splashed on the ground. There was something else she could see. The memories started slow and then flooded her. They seared and burned into her being, awakening what she had hidden for so long.

The movie returned but she knew the girl on the ground holding the guy in her arms. She had seen her. Over and over again. Words tried to surface, but they were choked out.

It was her.

It was her, sitting on the ground in the rain holding the lifeless body.

It was her love that she was holding.

She looked up at her mom and tried to smile. Her mom felt the pain and dreaded what was happening. Her daughter had forgotten on purpose. She had forgotten how much she loved him.

He was her smile.

He was her breath.

He was in her walk.

And he was gone.

She remembered the doctor telling her that it was his heart. It just quit.

He wasn’t sick, but healthy.

He wasn’t old, but young.

And he was gone.

Now she sat in the same place, in the same cold rain, some time later, remembering that it was his heart. That it just quit.

Her mom was afraid. She started to cry. Not for her daughters lost love, but what she was afraid of what she was going to lose.

Her mom tried to be strong for her daughter, but knew what it meant.

Her daughter looked up at her again and forced a smile. It had been a long time since she smiled. It caused her mom to cry more.

“It’s ok, mom. I know. I remember, it was his heart. He loved me with all of it. With everything he had. It’s ok. It’s going to be ok. My heart is his.”

Her mom held her tight, holding her close not wanting to let go, closing her eyes, knowing it wasn’t going to be ok. Knowing its not going to be alright. But she had to be strong for her daughter. She had been hurting for so long. So very long.

“I know baby. I know.”

She opened her eyes and looked down at her daughter. She lay there, in her loving mothers arms, her eyes closed, with a smile.

Her mother closed her eyes briefly, and thought of a movie with a woman, holding a young girl in her arms, lifeless, in the rain, with no one else around.

And she was crying.

Her mother bent down and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

And she sat in the rain.

She sat there in that parking lot, in the rain and cried, her own tears from her eyes, mixed with the tears from the heavens above.

And she sat there holding her daughter, in the rain, and tried to remember how she got there.