A Longing

We were laying in the park, our hands intertwined. We had just been talking about how we had to split up pretty soon. We were going to different colleges in about two weeks and were afraid that we were going to have to break up. Neither of us wanted to even consider that option. But Daryl was getting more and more distant, and I was terrified of the ongoing silence between us.

"Um... Sharon?" Daryl asked nervously. The way he said it was making me more and more terrified of what he was going to say.

"Yeah? What's up?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation light. It was hard to mask the sadness in my voice, and was surprised that he couldn't hear it.

"You know how were going to different colleges in a couple of weeks?" his voice kept getting more nervous with each horrible, terrifying word that he said.

"Yeah, of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" I replied. I could hear my voice starting to crack. I wanted to keep him from saying the inevitable, but I didn't know how.

"Well, I think that since we are going to different colleges, we should start seeing different people," he choked out. Then he got up suddenly. "Starting now. Bye, Sharon. I hope that we can still talk and be friends, but I just don't think that we can date while being separated for that long." Then he turned and walked away. I just stared after him. What else could I do?

When I couldn't see him anymore, I just let my head fall. What had just happened? I can't believe that he had broken up with me. Broken up. The reality of that didn't sink in until quite a few minutes after he had left me alone in the grass, sad and heartbroken.

When I woke up the next day I was expecting to see Daryl laying beside me in our comfortable queen-size bed. But when I turned over and didn't see him there, my mind immediately shot back to yesterday. Thinking about how Daryl had just left me there, all alone, made me want to die.

A few minutes later, my cell phone rang. I turned over and looked the caller I.D. It was my best friend, Lucy. Lucy was a smart girl and she got accepted into Harvard Medical School, so she had to move away. She wanted to become a dentist. Now that Daryl had broken up with me, I felt more alone than ever.

"Hey, Sharon! How's life in Syracuse?" Lucy asked cheerfully. "How are you and Daryl going?' The name hurt to hear.

"Um, about me and Daryl..... We kinda broke up," I said sounding sadder than I had planned. I didn't hear what Lucy said after that because I hung up. I knew it was rude and that she would call back, but I just couldn't handle talking it about right now. I figured that since I was up, I might as well eat breakfast and get ready to go to my job at Johnson's Grocery.

I dragged myself down the stairs and to the kitchen. I looked in my refrigerator, but there was nothing there. I looked in the pantry, but all there was only Frosted Flakes. I took them, walked all the way back over to the refrigerator, and got out the milk. I sat down and started to eat my cereal, only to find out that it was stale. I checked the expiration date on the box and found out that it had expired months ago. I got up to dump the half-eaten bowl of cereal in the trash, when I saw a picture of me and Daryl at prom together on the unused computer desk. Painful memories of when I had the only guy I've ever loved came back to me.

I set the bowl of cereal down on the table, and hurried back up to my room. My room, not ours. It was so hard to believe. I laid down on the bed, and curled up in ball.

I must have fallen asleep because when I looked the alarm clock on the bedside table, it said 2:30 P.M. Oh, crap! I thought. I missed a day at work. My stomach grumbled then, and I remembered eating only a couple bites of cereal this morning. I reluctantly got out of bed and went back down to my kitchen.

I remembered the picture that had sent me running back up to my room, so when I got into the kitchen, I immediately went over to the picture. I open a drawer in the desk, shoved the picture in, and slammed the drawer closed. I need to get rid of anything that was Daryl's, I thought. But after I eat something.

I went over to my pantry to see if I had anything to eat. All I found was some soup and a couple of boxes of macaroni and cheese. I decided on macaroni and cheese. I went to the refrigerator, and got out the milk and butter. I set a pan on the stove and poured some water in it. I turned to stove on so the water could boil, and then went out into the living room to watch T.V. hoping to get my mind off the horrible thing that had just happened.

There was nothing on, so I settled for some stupid reality dating show. I got up to put the noodles in the water, and as soon as my mind wasn't distracted by T.V. it wandered back to Daryl.

I missed seeing him in the kitchen, right by my side, while we were making breakfast ang having fun. I could almost hear his laugh still.