Never Say Goodbye

The first time I met Michael, we were at my father's church. He was six years old, and I was five.

He gave me a magnolia blossom and told me I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

From that moment forward, we were inseparable.

When I was nine, I fell from a tree. Michael picked me up and ran with me, through the woods, down the gravel road. The cuts along the bottoms of his bare feet needed stitches, but he hadn't slowed once in his race to save me.

When I was fifteen, Michael threw rocks at my bedroom window. I snuck out the back door and made sure not to wake either of my parents. He handed me another magnolia blossom, told me I was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and asked me to come away with him. We walked together to his daddy's field. It was in that spot, surrounded by cotton and the sounds of buzzing cicadas, that Michael gave me my first kiss.

When I was eighteen, my parents were in a car crash. The hospital had been cold, bare, and terrifying. Michael stayed with me the entire night. He held my hand in the lobby, waiting for news. He let me sleep, my head buried into his shoulder. He brought me tissues for my eyes and nose and helped me breath through the sobs. He was my rock when the nurse delivered the news, that both my parents, were gone.

When I was twenty, Michael took me out to dinner at a really nice place in the city. When we were almost done, he handed me a magnolia blossom, told me I was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and asked me to be his wife. Two months later, we said our vows.

When I was twenty one, Michael joined the Marines. The day he left, he handed me a magnolia blossom, told me I was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and held back his own feelings about leaving. I cried my heart out the first night without him, but he called me every chance he got. With time, things got easier.

When I was twenty three years old, my world ended. Two military officers knocked on my door. They said the only person that mattered to me was killed in active duty.

Three weeks ago, they told me Michael was gone.

So tonight, for the first time in my life, I stopped at a liquor store. I bought the largest bottle of whiskey they had available, not even caring about the brand or the price. The box full of home movies from the attic sits beside our television. Videos of Michael and I. Of us playing in the sprinklers as kids, of us leaving for prom, Christmas morning, our wedding day.

I'm alone on our couch, in our living room. The whiskey sits on our table. A bottle of antidepressants prescribed by our doctor sits beside it. A letter written to our family and friends is hanging on our refrigerator.

He's gone, and I can't bare to live without him. The pain is too much. It's unbearable. Each day it eats me up from the inside out. My skin feels tight. My chest hurts. My eyes are red and puffy from crying. My soul already died. It died with him.

I get up and place the first video into the player, and a copper headed little boy immediately smiles back at me.

"What are you doing Michael?" I hear his father ask from behind the camcorder.

"I'm waiting for Amanda," he answers, his eyes large and full of excitement.

I smile through the tears at the sight of him.

I switch the video to my birthday. Michael works the camera, trying to capture my reaction to his gift. I watch as the person I used to be opens the box, grins at the magnolia blossom, then lifts out a card.

"Open it beautiful," Michael's smooth voice fills my ears, too unreal through the speakers of my surround sound, unnatural and not enough.

Then the sound of myself, squealing with excitement at the concert tickets, causes me to drink heavily from the whiskey bottle. The shadow of my own happiness only intensifies the ache in my chest. It steals my breath and fills my lungs with empty air. Regret squeezes my heart. He should have come back.

The sound of Michael's booming laugh breaks me. I choke on the sob that bubbles out of my chest. What I wouldn't give to hear that laugh one last time. To see his handsome face, real and alive, in front of me. The pain is too much. I curl in on myself and rock back and forth on the floor. Broken. It would never stop, never go away. Things were never going to be okay without him here to fix them.

I grip the neck of the bottle. He was the only good thing left in my life. I open the lid and drink again. It burns my throat and taste terrible, but I force myself to keep going.

When I finally can't handle anymore, I sit the bottle back down beside me and grab another video.

Our wedding day.

Michael stands, dressed in his tuxedo, waiting for me. The same church where I first met him. My father's church. His picture sits on the alter, and as I reach the front, I press a kiss to my hand and touch it to his smiling image. "I love you daddy."

Michael's hand reaches out to me, and I step away from the photo to face him. My rock. My soulmate. My other half.

"Amanda," he starts. Michael had insisted we write our own vows, saying no oath was enough to express how he felt for me.

He reaches behind him, and his best man hands him a flower. A magnolia blossom. "You're still the prettiest girl I've ever seen," he says as he turns back to me. "I'm honored to be the man who gets to call you his wife. I promise to always honor you, take care of you. I'll be there when you're sick. I'll be there when you're sad. I'll be there when you're angry, because there's nowhere else in this world that I would rather be."

The image of myself with tears streaming down my face, could almost pass for the girl I'd become. Except her tears were joy, and mine were like blood, my soul leaking away from me, refusing to stay and leaving behind this empty pile of meat and bone.

"Michael. When I dreamed of this day as a little girl, you were always standing right where you are now. I've always known that you were the man I would marry. I'm the luckiest woman in the world to have someone like you." I look up at the screen at the sound of my own voice cracking, and I see the flush of my cheeks, an embarrassed smile, the way I'd wiped furiously at my eyes to try and recompose myself. If only I'd known then, I'd have never been embarrassed. I'd have said more, written better, taken more time. "I promise to love you, honor you, be by your side through good times and bad. I'll spend my life being the best wife that I can possibly be, so that maybe, one day, I'll be worthy enough to deserve your love."

I stare at myself. They hadn't been enough. I want to reach inside the screen, warn her, tell him not to go, but it's impossible.

I know what happens next but can't see the screen any longer. My eyes are a blur, and I'm too broken to bother wiping away the tears.

"I love you, Michael," I whisper as I take another long drink of the whiskey. "I love you so much." I lie, in a pile, wishing the floor would finally swallow me. The clock ticks away the seconds, taunting me with with a time there hadn't been enough of but suddenly felt too full. I hadn't had enough time with him, but without him, the world feels like limbo, hell, a place I'm forced to dwell in for eternity.

A knock against the door jars my attention, and after a moment's hesitation, I hobble off the floor to answer it. My legs are like jello, and my head is light and unfocused.

The door creaks as I pull it open to reveal an empty porch, but my breath catches at the glimpse of white below. On the welcome mat. A single magnolia blossom.

Quickly, my gaze shifts around the yard, but there's no one.

I reach down with shaking hands and pick it up, surprised to find the silky petals real and not my imagination. Tears cascade down my cheeks. The flower crumbles as I grip it into my fist.

"You're still the prettiest girl I've ever seen," Michael's voice rings out through the empty night air.

My head snaps up, and he's there, standing in the walkway, real and breathing and alive. "Michael!" I run forward.

His strong arms engulf and pull me close. He lightly strokes my back and utters soothing words into my ear. "I'm here now."

"You're alive!" A purge of heartache drenches his shirt as I sob against him. "You're not dead!" My hands claw into his shoulders, run over his arms, touch every inch they can just to prove each part of him is real.

"I'll never leave you again," he answers, voice hoarse. "It's okay now."

I turn to lead him into the house... but freeze.

There on the floor... is me. My hand still grips the whiskey bottle. The empty pill bottle still sits on the coffee table.

"It's over now," Michael whispers, pulling my face back to his. "I'll never leave you again." His lips press against mine. "Never."

I sob again and whip away from the sight of myself. I grip his shirt, press my face into the folds of material as if I can hide from the reality of what I'd done. "I'm so sorry, Michael. I couldn't do it. I couldn't say goodbye to you. I couldn't live without you."

"Shhh." He kisses my head, his hold secure. "You never have to."