Goodbye Flight

Goodbye.

He still remembered watching her pastel purple windbreaker weave through the crowd, into the security check and further and further away until she he could no longer spot a hint of lavender from behind the cloth line separating him from the airport departure. He hadn’t felt much remorse then, surprisingly, especially considering all the times he had begun weeping childishly at others’ departures at this same spot. But no, he hadn’t felt much sadness or tears then, so he had turned away and walked off to drive home, humming a soft lullaby under his breath.

It wasn’t until three hours later, in the strangely loud silence during the switching of CD tracks on the stereo that he had been hit with the first wave. But he still hadn’t cried, no. It was more like a revelation that now he was alone in this apartment. And the loneliness was a bit frightening. But he still didn’t cry.

Another hour passed, and he was sitting in front of the television, watching some inane comedy show that wasn’t really funny at all, when he felt like turning around to comment on the show, only to remember with a shocking amount of soberness that there he couldn’t because there was no one there. His chest had clenched and suddenly he felt like someone had forcibly shoved a bunch of cheap tissues into the space between his rib cage and his organs. It scared him and he found himself clutching his body with both hands in a crossed sort of motion, breathing heavily. 

It hurt and the hurt scared him. 

But still, he didn’t cry.

The next wave was in the eerie and heavenly and also desperately melancholic and paranoid moments between the first breaks of dawn and the last moments of midnight, at that hazy time that isn’t really night but isn’t fully morning yet either. He was lying in bed like an insomniac, when finally, finally, his brain woke up and he was hit with all the usual self-hatred, self-pity, uselessness, pathetic, why why why why why? And that was when the sadness hit.

It was like a flying semi-truck. It was like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. It was a booming sensation of the realization at last that he was now alone and alone he would be because she wasn’t coming back. All the words unsaid and all the happiness missed that wouldn’t be back and it hurt, it hurt so, so much.

And as the aching, clenching, tearing, burning, searing, throbbing pain hit, he finally began to cry.