What does it mean to miss someone?
Better to have love and lost
Than to never have loved at all?
But when the pain is so acute you can’t breathe
Could the comfort of “never had”
Ease you into a good night’s sleep?
Nothing hurts worse than longing
But hope is a powerful thing
And you just can’t help holding on
—
She missed the heavy weight of him above her, his warmth beside her. He was her comfort in the harder times.
Wait for me, he’d whispered before he slipped away.
Her hands played over the spot beside her, long cool from his continued absence. Without fail, her nose found its way to his pillow. The musky scent of him was already fading, but it was still there clinging to the goose feathers just like she continued to cling to him.
Two years had passed. She could tick off the hours, minutes, seconds, but she wouldn’t. It made everything seem too bleak.
Images of him in his uniform flitted through her mind. The sorrow in his eyes and the determination adding lines to his face, making him appear older in that solitary moment. Wait for me, he’d begged her, his amber eyes liquid with unexpressed emotion. He’d gathered her close and filled her mind with his special scent, kissed her lips, and made her promise.
But what if he didn’t come back? To remain and wait seemed foolish, but deep in her being, beneath the fear lurked a belief that he’d find his way to her again. That’s what she held on to even as tears leaked like rain from her eyes, soaking his pillow case.
Hope is what made her wait, made her cling tight, fortified her when she would’ve given up. Hope and determination
It was all she had left.