Your Sophie.
Somewhere in the middle of the letter, I leaned forward, placing my elbows on my knees. The tear stains on the paper made the ink darker against the white surface.
My eyes closed of their own volition, fighting the tears, fighting the pain and joy mixed together. How was it possible to be happy and sad at the same time?
How was it possible that a small piece of paper destroyed even the smallest semblance of calm I had?
She didn’t leave me only with memories and love. She left her bucket list with me and when I looked at the bottom, I saw something else written there.
Noah’s Bucket List
“My God.” I dragged one hand over my face, tears coming out even faster with each passing second.
I dropped the paper on the seat next to mine, trying to calm my breathing. She knew me too well. She knew I would try to downplay my feelings.
She knew I would try to push away the people that loved me, because my world shattered with her passing.
And she also knew that I would be unable to not fulfill her last wishes.
“Fine, Soph,” I spoke to the empty air. “I’ll live. I’ll live for both of us, and one day I’ll tell you about it.”
One day, we would meet each other again. One day, I would get to take her hand in mine.
But for now, I would live; even if my heart still bled and my soul still cried for her, I would live.
“For you, Sophie. Only for you.”
I stood up, taking the paper with me, and with one last glance at the engraved letters between these seats, I started walking out of the arena. Through the rows and to the entrance. I looked back at the rink one last time, because I knew I wouldn’t be coming back.
This was our place, and it didn’t feel right being here without her.
“Until we meet again,” I murmured to my past, and walked out, taking the first step toward the future she wanted me to have. I pulled my phone out as soon as I came to the parking lot and opened the pending emails and messages I didn’t dare to look at before, and started planning.
Maybe it was supposed to be the two of us planning a future together, but I could still live the life she would’ve wanted me to live. I could still do the things I wanted to do, and by doing them, I would honor her memory.
I would honor everything she wanted me to be.
24
NOAH
Forty Years Later
Friends,family, and random strangers assured me that time healed all wounds. They spoke of it as if it was the solution to all my problems.
But my wounds never healed.
My wounds festered, became more painful, more powerful. Like the bitter taste in your mouth you couldn’t get rid of for hours, that’s how I couldn’t heal my wounds. The worst thing was that they weren’t visible.
There was no cure, no medicine, no drug strong enough that could erase the memories.
The memories were the worst.
Not one day passed where they didn’t haunt me, where they didn’t mock me. The future didn’t matter when you lived in the past, when you couldn’t move forward, and my future made no sense without her next to me.
I liked to believe that I fulfilled my promise to her. The promise that I would live my life for both of us. The promise that I would be happy. The promise that what happened wouldn’t be the end of me.
But over time, I realized that I kept lying to myself, just like I lied to the rest of the world.
