An Old Love

January 21, 2008 · Posted in Fiction, Writing

We were great together once. I see that now, years after I turned my back on her. I needed her more than I knew, and as is too often the case, I took her for granted. I disregarded the importance of the long days together and th longer nights, the soft whispers and thunderous, cathartic outpourings. The times she’d echo my joy, or hold my heart as I wept.

Not once in the many years we were together did she turn from me, though not always did I run to her either. But, when I did, she was there. Sometimes graceful and elegant, sometimes tired and haggard, but there nonetheless.

It was in the splendor of youth’s ignorance we first met, the playful days of summer at the time in life with no cares or worries of what others may think. Had it been later, when image becomes everything and the slightest mistake is shunned, our romance would likely have never bloomed. As it was, I cared nothing for every misplaced step (and there were countless), and we flourished.

It was in high school where our romance took hold, with the irregularities of hormonal emotions pushed us together as no other force could. The highs and lows of teenage angst, where the smallest event is either a crises or pure ecstasy, drove the fires of our passion.

As with so many high school sweethearts, college brought our downfall. In the later years of high school, I’d grown insecure, felt unworthy of her, not good enough to make it last. Everyone assured me this was groundless, but how can you uproot those seeds once they’re sown?

We tried to make it work in college, though the new sights and distractions proved too much for me. We didn’t grow apart; I grew away from her. On several occasions I tried to go back, but it was never the same. I’d changed too much to speak with her as I once had.

I see her often now, in movies or television, or hear her on the radio. She still makes me laugh or cry, but, most of the time, I find myself unable to open to her as I did back in the carefree days of yesteryear. I’ll see her sometimes in a store, or a friend house, and I’m torn between the desire to touch her again, to open my heart like it opened so many years ago; and the knowledge that it could never be the same.

Tonight I whispered to her though, softly, as my wife lay in bed and I didn’t want to wake her. There was the same, undying battle: let everything pour out as it may, or hold it back for fear of … well, just fear. Perhaps of feeling unworthy again. Perhaps fear of getting too wrapped up in something I can’t have now, at least not as I once did.

The fear won out tonight, though it was a tough battle. I dusted off her nameplate — she’s had several names since we first met, this time it’s Kimball — and I slid the polished wood cover back over her keys, keeping the pedal held down to let the last whisper hold out a little longer.