Alone, Halves.

The contrast became stronger and stronger as she looked longer into the evening sky.
The colours were burning, mixing pink and purple blends into gold and brass, and finally, from somewhere further, a hint of blue were showing.

Ria wondered if she would understand everything before the moon came up tonight.

When Roland was not around by her, it was becoming increasingly hard to stay breathing and sober. When she unexpected had some time to wait for Cederick to finish classes, she sat by the stone benches near Skylark Park, and gave herself a rare chance to think about all the things that happened in the past year.
She feared and loved at the same time; it had always been like this. Roland was a miracle in her life, though one that she had been waiting to happen for most years of her young life. It was the same with her family, her parents, the so many painful and soul-throbbing ridicules, anecdotes, and weeps in bed after midnight.

But Roland was now on her mind more than anyone else.

His unconsciousness spent in the hospital bed which she was forbidden to visit made it even harder to concentrate on studies. Cederick had been there all the time, and she knew it well. He had not given her anything that she did not want or needed. His love for her had never lacked. Yet, Roland's touch and warmth gave her life a new hint, like a green sprout, filled with infinite and ardent hopes.
He said he would write a song for her, and she believed he was half way there. He had not promised but told her, simply enough, that one day he would take her on a travel trip. He needn't to promise; it was as if she knew the right things would happen, if they were so right. With Roland, she had never been anxious; she had absorbed it into her life, her future.
It was a girl's true emotion.

But there had always been paradoxes, too. Roland's bond with his family was something that Ria had never been forced to see. She was afraid that she would never understand that part of him. Although the family was never directly related to the bond between them, she believed it would play more or less a subconscious and important part of who Roland was. Cederick and herself grew up in another world; a world where family was difficult to deal with, and they had learnt the technique to handle it so well that it seemed only too easy for them to dig it out and re-bury it into their unconscious.
Ria thought about her family, and it only brought harder tears. She was tough, she was strong and independent. She needed no one's pity on what had happened to her early in life. As a bonus, Cederick had always been there when bad things happened. There was no need for extra friends to share her private burdens.
And now, falling in love with Roland, she was fearful.
In moments like these, Ria almost couldn't recognize herself. She felt like a faraway stranger, trying to evaluate her decision-making, her feelings and her status. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as a burst of wind swept pass the park, shaking the trees of their yellowing leaves. There she was, all alone, sitting and looking into the heavens for answer. She did believe in her own heaven. She only imagined a heaven filled with people she knew. And she was scared that Roland would arrive earlier than the rest of them.
The more she imagined it, the faster the tears were rolling out of her eyes. She could feel her breathing disturbed by the shallow sobs, a solemn urge to stop crying and the tolerance to let herself free pushing all together. She was in public after all, even though all the trees would have made her only a small shadow. The birds were the only things that could hear her heart cry. But her imagination was not about to let her go: all the memories were now jumbled up and coming back, her family traumas, she being locked up in the garage and seeing her father cry like a single mother later, Roland's touch and Cederick's infinite trust in her, her shameless smile and physical offering to all the guys she knew, owing Cederick nothing but a lifetime's worth of trust, friendship and love... And where she was now, in her life, stop and have a look around; still solitary, average in getting grades and lost in the direction for a rightful life.

In all the time she had cried to herself, she was certain of only one thing. If Roland was here, placing his hand on hers, holding her ever so gently in his arms and let her cry and listen quietly and peacefully, she would not feel pain, anguish, guilt or the pointless anger to an unfair life playing with human minds. Because she would have joined with Roland as two halves, their souls locking together, so strong and impenetrable that nothing could come between them.
He did not even need to know; only imagining was enough for her, alone.

He would be in a deep, dreamless sleep on the hospital bed, silence around him. Alone.