[ghost]: 200.Stories.Goodbye, Waterfall

  I had to get out, had to go somewhere. I couldn’t bear these walls, still echoing her voice. I went outside, on the dark and empty street where I could be a stranger, a silhouette; featureless. I walked, aimless, down the street I knew best in daylight and now could hardly see. Eventually, the cool air of the evening began to calm me down, soothing my agitated mind with quiet patience.
  I turned a corner and found my self at the old park, where I’d spent much of my time as a cub, scurrying about, exploring the world and sports and people. Like everything else, it was quiet, black, cold. As I wandered through, I couldn’t help but remembering the times I’d hit the baseball so hard it actually injured the kid who caught it, or I’d played with a little kid to cheer him up, or had driven myself to keep running until I finished training.
  I walked through the baseball field, past the basketball courts and the tennis courts and the swings in the sandbox. Past the pool that had replaced the building that remembered how I’d trained for boxing, or practiced acting, or sculpted pots that didn’t work. I came to the edge, just beyond the little Japanese garden where I’d climbed on rocks, jumping from one to the other, trying not to fall to my doom just a foot below, behind the auditorium where I’d played basketball and delivered my lines on cue. The sprinklers had come on, and all the plants glistened in what little light there was. One of the sprinkler heads was broken, and sent a gushing stream of water fifteen feet up before it rained back down.
  It was beautiful. I sat down on a nearby bench. Watching this self-proclaiming fountain gave me peace. The water shined as it flew majestically into the air before disappearing against the trees and shining once again on its way back down, changed, better – this water had done something, had been a part of something, this beautiful and glorious arch that defied nature and man. I listened to the soft pattering it made on the cobblestone path.
  I left earlier than I wanted, preferring to remember it bold as it was in its prime, rather than to watch it die as I knew it inevitably would.



  I had done something wrong again. It was a recurring theme, by this point, so in a way it wasn’t so bad – after all, it was nothing that hadn’t happened before. History supported me, showed me that there could still be a happy ending. But in a different way, it was almost infinitely worse: was I doomed to live a life forever riddled by mistakes and foolishness? I’d been here before; had I not learned? As always, she stayed supportive. As always, I found a way to make things worse.
  It was my turn to say something, but I didn’t. Unsure of how I’d managed to dig such a hole, I was terrified of making things worse. I kept quiet. She asked me what I expected from our relationship. Can’t answer. Can’t think, can’t speak. I can’t even move. I want to tell her I love her. I want to tell her I’m sorry. I mouth the words, but I can’t make the sound come out.
  She deserved better than this. She and I both knew it. I tried my hardest to be a good boyfriend, to be a good person, but every step forward is a new mistake, a new word I didn’t mean, hadn’t meant to say. We had spent such great times together. I know I’d made her happy, once. I had. Even then, back in days that felt like lifetimes ago, it was hard to speak of the future. She’d join the army, I’d go to college. I never asked her not to. It was what she wanted, so it was what I wanted for her. I knew it wouldn’t be easy – no one had said it would be easy – so I prepared myself for the worst. I prepared myself for the months of silence that would come while she situated herself in her new world.
  Hers was a world of success. It was a world of accomplishment. It was a world where duty and honor were manifest each day in each persons very way of life. It was a world I could never know or understand.
She asks me what’s wrong. There are no words, and won’t be for a very long time, so I smile as best I can and tell her that all is well. I feel guilty. Guilty for wasting her time. Guilty for gambling on our happiness.
  I had to leave, had to go somewhere. I had to say goodbye.

  Goodbye, waterfall.