The sun was just starting to peek over
the horizon. Elsa could hear the birds singing and the waves lapping
softly at the shoreline. The blazing colors in the distance would
soon be full fledged daylight, bathing her in the first rays of early
morning. Her house was slowly fading behind her as she gradually
made her way up the beach, her bare feet sinking just slightly into
the damp sand with each step she took.
She still had on her dress from
yesterday-- A long, white, flowing, peasant-style dress that she has
owned for years. She hadn't been to bed...hadn't thought much about
changing into something more comfortable either. The old dress was
just fine. Its hem kissed the sand every now and then as she walked
along--bottle firmly in hand. Her long, wavy blonde hair was pulled
back from her face and fastened with an ornate silver clip. Strands
of hair had escaped hours ago and now framed her face with loose
ringlets. Her eyes were rimmed with smudges of black and
gray—remnants of makeup that had been destroyed by hours of
weeping.
The champagne was finished hours
ago...it's affects no longer noticeable. She didn't often drink but
last night that bottle was her new best friend. A night that was
supposed to be a loving celebration with her special someone, somehow
turned into an almost endless session of replaying old memories and
crying in the dark. Around four o'clock in the morning...her new
friend persuaded her to write the letter.
Nobody writes letters anymore, a
small voice in the back of her mind scolded her. Certainly not with
a pen and paper. What would she do with it? Send it? Pouring her
heart out on tear stained paper-- no matter how fancy it was with
it's pretty flowered borders--wouldn't make things right. It
wouldn't get her what she wanted.
You can't get back what was never yours
in the first place.
But the tears kept flowing and her
glass seemed to refill itself without her even trying. Numbness and
clarity walked hand in hand as she rose up from her seat by the
fireplace and made her way to the desk. She chose her favorite
pen—the one her grandmother had given her on her 18th
birthday—and a few pages of that fancy stationary. Then, she
sliced herself wide open and her words bled onto the page.
I think love you. Not the forever
kind. Not the kind that makes people take life altering risks.
Maybe it's not even love...who knows...but I feel something.
Something strong and deep and real. No matter how long we've been
doing...well, whatever it is that we do... I never feel enough. I get
so nervous when I'm around you and I feel like everything I say is
the wrong thing. This letter is probably the wrong thing...but it's
late...and my inhibitions are rather diminished. I've always been perfectly happy to love you
from a distance and I told myself that it didn't matter if you ever
loved me back. As long as I put my love for you out into the
universe, good things were bound to happen. I kept waiting. Waiting
for the universe to reward my patience. Waiting for you to throw me
scraps of attention. “Rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac”...I
heard that in a song once. I guess people really do want what they
know they can't have. I've spent what feels like an eternity in this
endless loop of rejection and reward. I would ride on the high of a
single kiss for days...only to crash to rock
bottom...humiliated...time and time again. And no matter how many
times I talked myself out of this insanity, I keep coming back. You
didn't even have the decency to tell me you weren't coming tonight
and yet, I know that if you asked me right now-- I'd drop everything
and come to you. And I don't know what hurts more: knowing that I
am really that weak or knowing that you're not going to ask me.
Elsa stared off
towards the ocean. The morning sun warmed her face and the soft
breeze lightly tousled her hair and caused her skirt to wind around
her ankles. She tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ears
and fished the letter from her skirt pocket. She felt changed.
Determined. It had been a rough night but the morning seemed full of
promises.
She looked it over
quickly, then rolled it up and slid it into the bottle.
She took a deep
breath and haphazardly wiped a few tears away with the back of her
free hand.
With all of her
might, she threw the bottle into the sea. It bobbed and swayed with
the current until, eventually, it disappeared from Elsa's sight. It
was only then—after she could no longer see it—that she turned
around and began to head home.
As she retraced her
steps along the shore, a smile started to make its way across her
pretty face.
Today would be
better than yesterday.
The next day would
be better than today.
She was finally
free.
I love the positive ending in this story. Nice to see your words Stephanie.
ReplyDeleteThank you! My husband asked me what my gut said when I saw the picture and I told him most of this story. He said, "Wow, that's depressing!!" So, I second guessed myself and wasn't going to write it. Then, I was driving around at work and thinking about it and the whole idea suddenly became clear. I really liked that it had a positive ending as well.
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