The Tree Marked Love

"It frightens me to think that I might one day grow old and shrivel, and have nothing to show for it." Nadeja Terez whispered.
I scoffed at her and shook my head. She could be so vain sometimes and so scared.
There were times when I'd walked in on her sitting and staring at herself in the mirror, touching her face with delicate, trembling hands, her large, brown eyes frozen in sadness.
"Old age is nothing to be afraid of," I chided, but she looked at me fiercely.
"You wouldn't understand. You're not me, you don't share my fears." Nadeja said sharply.
I shrugged, giving up trying to understand her mystery, jammed my hands into my pockets and grabbed out a pack of cigarettes. I knew she detested my habit, but I couldn't care less. I did not belong to her and she did not belong to me as much as I wished she did.

I didn't like to admit it but I've always pursued her to the ends of the world only to find myself always a few feet behind.

I lit my cigarette, took a long drag and exhaled.
"How can you expect someone to understand you when you never allow them to see you?" I asked.
"You see me."
"No. No I don't." I told her with more defiance than I wanted to express.
"You're here but half of you is still wandering around aimlessly, complaining about how you haven't found what you are looking for in life, and how you're afraid of things," I rambled.
"But you don't know what you're looking for and you don't know what you're afraid of either."

There was a silence before she picked herself up from the grass and walked away slowly. I wanted to call out after her but felt my pride get in the way. How many times have I called out to her, I wondered and took another long drag of my cigarette.

"I'm afraid that when I'm old, my eyes will pale and see only blurred visions of the things that used to be so beautiful to me." she finally said loudly, walking back to me. She didn't care that what she'd said had stopped random strangers in the park who turned to give her strange looks. Nadeja wasn't the type to let embarassment or self-awareness to stop her from expressing herself in whatever way she wished.
"I'm afraid that when I'm old, the beauty about me that you follow will cease to exist, and you'll leave," she continued.
I sighed and tried to reassure her that it wasn't her looks I was interested in, but she cut me off.
"And I'm afraid that when we're old, we'd never feel as young as we do now, standing here, boldly arguing about silly things like fear and life and love, when there's really nothing to argue about."

She chewed her bottom lip and turned her face away.
"Because when there's nothing left to argue about, we would be nothing but boring oldies taking comfort in the sound the silence makes, and we'd be better off dead."

"We?" I asked eagerly.
Nadeja shook her head wearily.

"You will never understand the fact that I can never give myself to you and be at peace with it."
"Why not? You should be with me. You should belong to me."

"I don't even belong to me!" she laughed, almost bitterly.
"I belong to the wind. Solely because of its ability to steal me away and allows me to travel to different places whenever it blows, and frankly, it's the longest relationship I've ever been in."
I took another long drag of my cigarette and exhaled.
"Not funny." I told her. "I wish I were that wind."

Nadeja smiled and we started walking in silence.

All the while I couldn't stop thinking about what she said and when a gust of freezing wind blew against our faces, I couldn't help but realize that if I were the wind, I would never be bitter or cold towards her.
Only a gentle breeze. I would never steal her and lead her to different places like a leaf in a tempest, instead allowing her to decide her course of actions and destinations so she wouldn't have to travel so much.

She could stay. She could stay with me.
We walked until we reached a small field with a single old, oak tree, beaten down but tall and strong. Its trunk was filled with lover's carvings of who loved who in the shape of a heart.
I approached it slowly, pulled out my pen knife and started to carve out our initials.

B.R - Bill Rudowe + N.T - Nadeja Terez

Nadeja watched me as I struggled to immortalize our names and when I was done she reached for my hand in such a way she never did before. We stood and looked at my work in admiration, and even though no words were exchanged between us in that moment, I knew she knew what it meant.
However the wind blows from then on end, it will never rip out the roots of that tree.
And however old we grow together, we'd forever be immortal now in the carvings on that old oak tree.