A Guest

The following is a short I wrote late in 2014 when I was first trying to really ground myself as a writer. I have made only small edits, and kept the original true to itself. I hope you enjoy it.

Jessica toyed with the thin fragile chain around her neck. Her white sundress frolicked lightly in the breeze. Overgrown grass left a fine dew over her bare ankles with each step. Jessica grinned and a smile crept out of her as she was heading to see James after, oh so long.

How could she forget his love, how could she stand never seeing him again? She knew there would be one more time for one last sweet embrace. The day so intimately and painfully etched into her mind. The fresh smell of cut grass brought it back.

A warm embrace and the creases of a rough uniform cutting into her soft skin as they both tightened their hold. She had become accustomed to him being but a guest in her presence. How could she forget his love? But there would be a time and place for another embrace, just as now, how it all went wrong.

Pulling away she looked up into his soft green eyes. He had to know her thoughts. Somehow, he knew by now, they would meet again, somehow. Somehow she would begin again. She leaned in, leaning up on her toes as their lips met. His hands holding her arms in a loving embrace, but kept a small distance between their bodies in protection. He kissed slowly, unhurried, as if he could stay all day and night in the tight tender embrace. Deepening the kiss she was flooded with that warm adrenaline that was so dear to the likes of him. He was a guest here now, locked to his lips.

She wanted nothing more than to see his face, his face that she so vividly saw in her mind. Time had tried to come to wash away the pain of the absence. Now with her closing the distance to him once more, the burning pain reminded her that it was not a guest, but a resident in her. But the pain was a reminder of something great, so great she could only smile wider as she pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear.

Unreal, was the only way she could put it to see him again. How, had she tried to love someone new? Time had tried to come and take away the pain, but she wanted too badly for her memories to remain. To hear his voice, and to see his face. There wasn't a moment she would erase, not this guest in her mind. She could never understand, with what all he did, why some stayed and others go.

She slowed her walk as she neared him. Her bare feet coated in the wet morning dew from the grass, inches from his boots. His boots, so clean on the concrete slab. How the time had seemed so long, but now it was so fast in her mind, and how she now had to begin again with him here.

Her eyes followed up his boots, his empty boots. The concrete they stood on, so clean. His name engraved so neatly into the stone. She just wanted her mind to stay the same, as he was here, she only a guest until they meet again.