sex warehouse

It’s a long stretch of highway and a lot country road that take me from there to here. Every time I see the sign that tells me I am back here, I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Being back here, in this place where we used to be, brings back so many thoughts, so many moments. A few are good, but most are more painful than should be lived through. I don’t want to be here because I don’t want to have to acknowledge what was once my life, our life.

In many ways, time has stood still in this town. So many things are exactly the same today as they were all those years ago.  Even the people are the same.  How can an entire town just refuse to make progress? They feel no need to adjust and evolve. It’s just how it has always been.  One generation after another, accepting that this how things are and good enough is good enough.

There was one thing that despite the best efforts of everything and everyone around us, did change. That was us. We were supposed to be the ones who made it. We were perfect together. We were going to be the shining light, the couple people envied. We were the ones. You and I, together since we were barely old enough to understand what love was. No one could have known how our story would end.

I forget to breathe as I turn the corner and start down the road where we had lived, where our home had been. My eyes are trained on the horizon as I see the shape come into focus.  The charred shell of that home is still standing.  The siding around the blown out window frames are black with soot. The left side of the roof completely collapsed from the heat of the relentless flames that had burned our lives into ash.

I stop the car and sit there for a long time. I can’t bring myself to get out.  For a moment, I close my eyes and go back to the day we bought this house.  I see us walking together, hand-in-hand, across the sprawling front yard. Smiling because we know that this where our dream begins. There will be kids running up and down that big staircase someday. We will spend our nights on the porch swing, listening to our favorite songs and enjoying the breeze. We will live the life that everyone knows we are meant to have and we will be happy.

I force my eyes open. I can’t do this. Not again. Not today. It is getting late now and tomorrow is a very big day for me. Tomorrow my life begins again.  I just came to say goodbye to the memory of the life we had, the one that burned to the ground and took you with it. I don’t regret a minute of that life, of our love. But, it is time for me to move on.

They said I was the lucky one. I survived the flames. But they were wrong. My life may have carried on, but you died and took my heart with you. My life, and our love, was literally burned to the ground. I never thought I could love again. I didn’t want to. There was nothing to love without you.

But when I least expected it, I realized I could love again. And I need to. He is an amazing man and he loves me and he deserves for me to love him back. He helped me live again. Tomorrow I will marry him and I won’t be coming back here again. So tonight I say goodbye to you, to us, and to the love we used to have.  And I say hello to this new love, the new life I will have, and to what lies ahead.

This Fiction piece is in response to the Indie Ink weekly challenge I received from Rachel in the OC this week.  

In My Life - The Beatles