After You

I’m in a box. Nothing fancy I guess, just a brown cardboard box. She’s hid me though. Under a tree. It isn’t just any tree that she wouldn’t be able to recognize and confuse it for another tree. No, this is the tree at the park next to the lamp post. The lamp post that lit the seat where they sat that night. The night where I fell in love with him. The night where they had their first kiss. That tree. I remember so much from that night. The tree and light from the lamp post played together to create irregular shadows on his face, but absent from any shadows were his lips, highlighting the path to seal my love. I felt so different then to how I feel now, I was falling in love with the man who I thought would be the one. I felt love, you know, that swollen but fluttery ache of love. There is a lot to remember from that beautiful night. But that is where she put the box. Dug a hole and placed it under that tree.

And now I can hear someone trying to dig me back up and somehow I have a feeling it isn't her.

I’m afraid.

***********

It all started thirty-four years ago. To be born. To be born to love. How beautiful, right? To know as soon as you enter this existence that you have the power of the most beautiful thing in the world; to touch and be touched by others before the light is gone. When it all goes so quickly, the noises, the images, the smells, before you really get to hold it all, at least, at least…love. At least love was behind it all. And so when I was born, I knew what I had to do.

***********

I hear the dirt being swept away from the top of the box. The lid opens slightly and someone peeks in to see me. It’s not her. It’s him. He’s not suppose to know I am here. The lid closes and I can feel myself being taken away. He’s not suppose to have me again. He already let go of me once. I don’t know why he has come back for me. 



What if she can’t find me?

***********

She had put me in a box months ago. It wasn’t on the day when I broke. The day when he suddenly packed his bags and said he had to leave her. Not the day I broke. But three months after that when he said to her that he couldn’t see them getting back together again because he didn’t love her the same way anymore, when I knew by his words that the hope of being together again one day was gone. It hurt. It hurt a lot because I still felt the same way about him and I couldn’t understand how it was so easy for him to let me go. It hurt too much to think about the love for him, too much to think about love in the future with anyone else. So it was the easiest thing to do to put me in a box and hide me.

***********

He opens up the box. I’m completely exposed to him. He looks at me. I thought I might be okay to see him again, but a pain starts. I’m struck with the sadness of it all and I can see on his face that he feels the same way. He lifts me up. He holds me gently. And the years and moments together come flooding in. And this is why love is hard.

***********

I think that’s the easy part; to love. But to be loved, that is the hardest part. For a person to love you, love you the way you want to be loved. To be hurt by someone you love. You don’t have control in that. That’s the hardest part. Love really does hurt. The chip on my top left, that was when he left. I don’t know when it will heal or if it will heal, maybe I will always have that chip.

***********

I don’t know how long it's been since he found me. He’s kept me in the same box. Sometimes I’m under his bed and sometimes he places me next to him on the bed when he goes to sleep. A few times he has taken me out of the box and has held me for awhile or talks to me. He noticed the chip. He touched it one time and asked if he caused it and said sorry. He looks different too. He seems worn out, more lifeless and gray. It’s sad to see how people change. When they’re in love there is a glow that can’t be described and when they’re out of love they don’t seem to be the same person anymore, as if love is what keeps everything alive. Sometimes when I’m in the box I can hear him cry. I can't help but still love him. He's the familiar ache I get, a memory still within me, no matter what I try tell myself to think, when I see him all I can think is but wait, am I not in love with this man? When does that familiar love ache go away?

***********

“I thought maybe you can help me?”

It’s her. Within the darkness of the box I hear her voice. Here, with him in his home. I’m under the bed, but I can hear her. Their footsteps come closer.

She’s upset now, “I thought I should hide it, I don’t even know if I want it again, but a part of me just feels horrible, I don't feel like myself, and maybe it was a mistake but I went back to where I put it and it wasn’t there and I’ve been searching for weeks and weeks and I didn’t know where to go I didn’t know who to go to for help. I just thought of you and...and I’m sorry I’m here”

“No, wait. I shouldn’t have, I should have told you I just, just wait. I have it. I have it.” 



It’s quiet but then I hear someone close to me and I feel myself being pushed and lifted up. The lid opens, and I see them both looking down at me.



He looks at her and says, “I’m sorry I took it.”



She looks at him and says, “I didn’t think you’d know where to find it.”



“Of course. Our first kiss meant a lot to me too.”



“I just thought with the way you left, you just didn’t really care about what had happened to us before.”


“I did love you, it’s not that. It’s that we’re just not right together. You remember the fights, we just couldn’t make things right again. I’m not the person who can make you happy.” 



“Yes, you said this when you left and I told you to stop telling me what’s right for me, I can make that decision.”



“It’s not what I want then.”

“Then why did you take my heart?”

He looks down at me, “It’s not that I want it, I know we can’t be together. But I couldn’t let go of it completely just yet. Your love meant a lot to me, it was really special, too special to let go of, just yet."

He slowly pushes the box towards her, “But it doesn’t belong to me anymore, it’s yours and someone else deserves it.”



She takes the box from him.



“I have something for you too.” She puts me down and I see her take something from her bag, another box. She hands it to him, “I took your heart too,where you asked me out under the rain...I'm glad you remembered that hill. I guess I wasn't ready either. It was nice to have it again. But it doesn’t belong to me anymore, it’s yours and someone else deserves it.”



She closes the lid to my box and puts me in her bag. 


***********

It's good to be back inside her, even though it's not as comfortable as it was in the past. At least I don't feel so heavy as I did the day he gave me back to her. That familiar love ache still comes back from time to time when I think of him. But thirty-four years ago I was born to love and this is what I know I have to do.