She pulled the petals from the rose one by one and let them fall to the grass. She gazed out into the distant landscape and all I could do was watch her breathe. Suddenly I was the focus of her attention; she stared at me as if it was the first time she was actually seeing me for what I was.
“Well…what now?” she finally said to me and all I could do was stare into her ocean eyes. The eyes that I had so often gotten lost in finally found me and showed me for the first time ever pure emotion, and it was fear. I couldn’t respond so instead I took my turn to fall silent and stare out into the distance. We couldn’t remain this way forever and we both knew it, the only matter left was determining who was going to admit it first.
“Talk to me…please sweetheart, I can’t take this any longer” her eyes pleaded and begged me more than her voice, her ocean eyes slowly began to drown me, us, our hopes, our future together.
“We have to end this now…now before it’s too late and we grow to resent each other forever.” I gave the wrong answer, her ocean eyes closed up once again. Shutting me out and shutting all emotion in. A hurricane of sadness and grief crashed down on her shores and then in one swift swirl all was calm again…the eye of the storm.
“Is this it then? Is that what you’ve decided?” she asked softly.
“I didn’t decide anything; this is how it has to be. I have no choice, just like you have no choice.” I knew that sentence would pierce her heart before I said it but when I looked at her I saw more than just heartache, in that moment she finally understood all the complexity and all the issues we had always had together and she finally accepted things for what they were.
Silently she stared out into the distance as she slipped the ring off of her finger. She gently placed it on the patch of grass that was in between us. I could feel her look at me for a moment, her last hope for a second chance. I ignored her stare and with that last action her final flames of hope died out and the ashes were washed away by her ocean eyes just as quickly; making it so that no traces of our now cremated relationship could be found. She gathered up the white material of her dress and stood up as she flipped back her veil, and without looking back she walked away. As I watched her silhouette against the sun disappear slowly I knew she was going to be okay.
As the darkness grew I knew what I had to do. No longer avoiding my fears I picked up the ring and slowly walked to the church to face the last remaining strand of our lost relationship, preparing to make it burn.