The Figment

The Figment

It is always harder to let go...

         Large masses of fine, sunshine blonde hair floated weightlessly in the summer wind, sandy lashes fluttered as such sad verdant eyes looked around expectantly. A sigh of both impatience and acquiescence escaped from the confines of her lips, a look of disappointment flitting briefly across her face before it was swiftly hidden beneath a thin veil of nonchalance. She went and sat on a bench, the sound of chattering friends breaking the silence as they swarmed around the bubble of loneliness erected around her. She couldn't bring herself to follow the conversation let alone actually care about what was being said as she peered at the azure sky. As if her eyes could see something that no one else ever could.

         Melancholy rolled off of her as she remembered the feeling of dark skinned arms that would and used to slide around her shoulders and waist. The soft chin that would come to rest atop her head, or the forehead that found purchase on her shoulders. As if she were a precious item made of the most fragile porcelain that would break the slightest provocation. The soft sighs of contentment as they reveled in the warmth of the other.

         He, as if she were the breath of fresh air from the suffocating life of a Social Butterfly; and she, because he was the salvation from falling into the pits of loneliness that she had desperately crawled up from for the past year. In it, they found a moment of camaraderie and friendship that they had with no other, and a daily routine to provide relief.

         She acquiesced to her yearning for him, tears flitting beneath her lashes as she looked up, "Rosy..." the voice of her past murmured sweetly into her ear. Her hair fluttered from the breath. She sighed once more.

No... You're not real...

         She closed her eyes as the sun warmed her face, but as the phantom arms wrapped around her shoulders and a chin rested on her head in an all-too-familiar fashion, her eyes widened. "Guess Who?"

You...

         She didn't have to guess, and she could see his java eyes twinkling in her mind's eye. She uttered his name, as whisper that caught on the wind, the name of the Phantom. Her voice, to those who might have heard, was cracked and broken. Her friends remained oblivious as they congregated loudly and obnoxiously next to her as they always did, utterly clueless to the blonde wallowing in longing next to them."Rosy, I told you not to call me that, its ----" the name was uttered, or... a variant of it, as boisterous laughter drowned out the sweet, sweet voice murmuring in her ear... the voice that belonged to something that did not exist.

Iknow that... It's a habit..!

         Teeth worried her bottom lip. She almost jumped up as she practically bolted towards the bus that was taking them to the next building. The girl wanted to reply back desperately, tell him that she had told him countless times not to call her that. But she ignored the urge as she uttered his name, before her as equally silent goodbye. It dying off as an unheard whisper on her lips as she sat down in her usual seat, trying to ignore the phantom standing where she had once been sitting; that smile still gracing his face. She sat sullen-faced, choking back her tears as loneliness crawled up in her chest like bile. Her shoulders shook as she held in her sobs.

         No tears fell at that moment, but the phantom, the figment of her imagination, looking the same as he had when she had last seen him, caused her heart to burn and ache with a ferocious intensity."Rosy, think of me everyday... I want to be able to make you smile , even from so very far away..." The girl smiled, gently tracing fingers down the hot glass window with delicate precision.

         "I already did, everyday I though of you; even before the move, so no worries there..." The girl whispered, but the figment just smiled, and for the first time, the girl smiled back the phantom, even though she knew he wasn't real. He was a mere projection, but even as far away as he was, she couldn't help the emotion bursting within her chest.

         The figment was never this sentimental, only fleeting touches and small sentences. The emotion took form beneath her eyelids as tears, hot and raw with emotions that ran rampant beneath her simmering eyes. She could tell where this was going. He was leaving her here to be even lonelier."You should smile for yourself every once in a while." As the bus pulled away, it was the last time the girl ever saw her Phantom, but it wasn't the last time those words rang in her ears, resonating within her heart and her soul. Even through her tears, she smiled for him. Her figment.