He sat, fighting.
He didn't know what he was fighting, he just was. Actually, he did know what he was fighting-against. But he didn't understand what had won in this battle, what he had lost, and what he was sure to win or lose.
He wasn't sure he wanted to know what he'd lost, what had won. Either way, when you really thought about it, he lost.
He was trying not to think about it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as his companion pushed her door open, sand falling from her hair as she ran a hand through it. Frustrated, he palmed the wheel with his hands, trying not to envision himself with those little grains of fossilized tears, falling away from her forever, never to touch her skin again, never to comfort her, assure her that she wasn't the first to cry.
It was hard not to.
She turned to push herself out of the car, pulling herself to her feet in a graceful and fluid motion, her legs shaky, but still supporting her easily. Anyone else wouldn't have noted the unsteady twitch in her calves, except for maybe the man inside her house, asleep behind the newspaper. But he knew her inside and out, he saw the twitch without seeing it.
That was just it though, and he couldn't deny it.
He knew her inside and out.
He didn't know her like that any longer.
Hadn't for a long time.
She paused before turning to close the door, and he looked up at her, his face a pitiful mess, his hair disheveled and his eyes distraught. A faint smile touched her lips, but it was nothing like she used to smile for him, it wasn't the smile that he'd fallen in love with, the smile that lit up her face and made her eyes shine like all the beauty in the world.
No, it was just a faint smile that touched her lips, fading away before it could light imperceptibly in her eyes. But her face wasn't so dark anymore, wasn't so pained. Hurt still, yes, but seemingly bearably so.
"Hey," she said quietly, so quietly he could barely hear her, and he doubted that if his heart had been beating any louder, he would have heard her. "Look, I'm…I'm sorry. I had no right to act like that."
He swallowed, and thought he felt a flutter in his chest. She turned her eyes to look at the man that could be seen sleeping through the picture window at the front of her house.
"Listen," she continued after a moment, still not looking at him. She lowered her face, looking away from him, and he could almost see tears glinting in her eyes. But he didn't see well enough to know for sure. "I-I…I just wanted to say that…and that…if I acted so childish…that's because that's what I am…a kid trying to pretend she's a woman." She laughed bitterly to herself as she looked back to the man in the window. "But then, I never acted like a little girl. It shouldn't surprise me that I acted like that tonight at all."
The sarcasm was gone. She didn't mean to slap him in the face with her words, but she did.
She looked back to him and flashed him a quick smile, but it was forced. Her eyes shimmered in his line of vision, her face didn't glow. "Thanks for dinner. Thanks for tonight, too. It's nice to know we're still friends."
She leaned in, giving him a quick hug before pulling herself back and closing the door behind her, padding quickly up the front walk, shoes in hand, into her home and out of his life.
He swallowed thickly, taking the car out of park.
He drove home in silence, racing faster then was probably safe for his convertible, his hair whipping angrily about his head, his eyes watering from the ground speed, his eyes tearing from the heart ache. Halfway home, he swung the car off of the road, nearly spinning it into a ditch, but swerving the other way before stopping the car and breaking down.
Sitting in the middle of the highway, he lowered his face into his hands, his shoulders quaking with the effort it took to breathe, with the effort it took to let it out.
He couldn't hear his heart anymore…it wasn't pounding like it had been pounding earlier, so loud it could deafen the dead. It wasn't even pounding any longer.
It was dying.
He was dying.
And it didn't take much to wonder why.
Resting in the passenger seat next to him, crumpled, forlorn, and forgotten, a tribute to another time he thought she'd never leave completely behind, lay a part of her.
The part of her that he had waited four long years for her to grow away from, to set aside, but not forget.
I acted so childish…that's what I am…I'm sorry.
And then she had walked away.
But not a little girl.
And never to return to him.