No Goodbyes

                                                 No Goodbyes


         I turned my head away from the piercing bright of the light that filtered in from the window, covering the side of my face as if it were the sun that bothered me. The truth was that I didn't want her to see me cry. I felt nothing but the weight of emptiness drag me down and make me feel a thousand pounds heavier on my bus seat, and I thought about the irony of how emptiness becomes so dragging and so burdensome when it actually was a hollow space filled with nothing. I also thought about the strangeness that everybody could be walking around with that same kind of hole, and I wonder if those holes were once filled with something before it became what it is. Nothing should be devoid of meaning, right?

         I looked down the aisle of the bus I rode, pretending to be interested with the display of strangers that murmured to themselves, shuffled about, or even turned to sleep, although the bus hadn't even left the stop yet. A thought blew by my mind, and it was if those people had holes like I did, and if they did, what would it look like? I imagined a hole in the shape of a hamburger for the man that was staring at the lunch of a stranger across from him. I imagined a hole in the shape of a toy for the little boy that was lying down in the middle of the aisle, looking as if nothing bored him more than waiting for the bus to start moving. I imagined the hole inside of me, and I knew it wasn't in the shape of an object, neither was it in the shape of an edible commodity, but rather it was in the shape of the girl whom I did not wish to turn my head to the right to see. It was the girl that waited on the other side of the small plastic window that separated us; a girl that I wished would just disappear, but at the same time wished were by my side. Some people think I'm complicated; maybe that's why she's on the other side of the window, and not with me inside. I felt the sharp pang of pain with the aftershock of regret stab my heart, and I felt lifeless as the bus doors closed shut, and the bus started to groan in preparation to move forward.

         I willed myself to glance out the window, just to see if she was still there, and she was. She stood with her face filled with the beauty of glowing heartache, and I saw her hand come up to wave me goodbye. I could've smiled, or I could've waved back, but I didn't. I felt a strange sense of intoxication and ache rise up in me, and I decided against saying goodbye. A parting without a goodbye was always best for me, because if there were no goodbye, there would still be the possibility of seeing her again, and the possibility that reality would not have its way. A goodbye felt like a thousand slams of doors in my face, a confirmation of the end, and I didn't want the end to come.
I leaned my head back on my seat so as to keep my tears from falling down my cheeks. The bus moved forward, and I felt myself get farther and farther from the world with every inch it took. It felt as though a string were tied to me, with the other tied around her. It felt as though the tug of my heart intensified in power with every second that passed by. I wonder if I smiled to her, would she have smiled back? If I had gone out of the bus and begged her to love me the way she did, would she have stopped me? Would she have asked me to stay?

         All of these and more pestered my mind and wounded my heart, and as the old bus groaned forward, my mind traveled back to the moment I decided to leave her. She was staring out the window with an expression so curious that I didn't know what she could possibly be thinking. She bit her lip the way she does when she wants to cry but won't, because she was strong in ways that I never knew a person could be. But that day even her disguises fell apart, and I was exposed to the absolute pain in her glowing eyes. It was a light that dimmed out to reveal nothing but love for me, and how she could not love me that way anymore. We did not argue, we did not cry in each other's faces, but we let ourselves know with the absolute affirmation of looking into each other's eyes that we would regret this moment. We knew we would, but we traveled down that road into a place where we were standing on opposite sides.

         Once the bus came to a final stop, I put my hand on my heart and wondered about the hole in it. I wondered if it would ever go away, and if she were wondering the same about hers.