Bold, Brilliant, Yellow.

The battered suitcase sat on the living room floor. It wasn’t overflowing, not yet anyway. It wasn’t latched either, and his eyes were drawn to a sleeve peeking out. It was yellow, the color of the first flower he’d ever bought her, a marigold for a summer corsage.

Bold, brilliant, yellow. The color of her hair.

Her hair. The first thing he’d noticed, all those years ago. Sometime later he’d learned the proper word, blonde, but that never stuck. He’d only ever thought of her as daisies, and crayons, and the warm midday sun.

She’d first married him at six with blue ribbons at the ends of her braids, matching both her dress and her eyes. Then again when they were twelve. Bouquets of playground wishing weeds. Twenty-five cent candy-pop rings. Kisses on the cheeks, both flushed with color. Giggles, laughter, quick grins, shy smiles.

He turned his eyes away, not wanting to look at that sleeve or that suitcase any longer. They’d bought it even before their first apartment— the one right after the honeymoon. Rent was cheap then, food cheaper, and they had hand-me-down rugs, gales of laughter, and grandiose dreams to turn the pit of a place into a home.

He heard her key push into the lock.

He didn’t want to see her, so he closed his eyes. No blonde hair to look at, no slender fingers lacking childhood rings. They were devoid of engraved ones now too.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured once inside. He shook his head. That wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. Not the girl who’d thrown snowballs at him while he hung from the monkey bars. Not the woman who’d come to their bed in nothing but reindeer socks and a Christmas bow.

He wondered what the words were meant for. Maybe all of it, maybe just because she caught him at home. Because she left the suitcase right there in the same place they used to sit together and watch movies.

Or maybe for all the unspoken things that spanned the distance between them. For the oceans that were never even puddles before.

“I’ll miss you, you know,” she said, a little louder.

He didn’t want to, but he opened his eyes. She stood there, one hand touching her other elbow, chewing at her bottom lip. She looked scared, and she looked alone. This woman he’d married, the woman he’d spent his whole life loving, this grownup girl, still with a blue ribbon tying off her braid.

It hit him then. It was more than legal paperwork with names scrawled and dates initialed, more than a For Sale sign in the yard, and more than his new studio lease.

“It’s all right,” he said, picking himself up. He went to her, even as she turned her face away this time. He didn’t speak, but waited for her, and when she looked at him again, he could see everything in her eyes.

So long together, holding hands, skipping rocks, dancing in their underwear, howling at the moon. So long to be those kids, the ones with silly faces and mountains of courage that dwarfed common sense. The ones born to be splashes of summer— glints of golden rings, honeycombs, and lion manes.

On the other side of that door, everything would be different. Summer couldn’t last forever and what came next was right out there.

“I’m scared too,” he said. “All I know is you.”

There could be autumns made of shifting reds and greens, snow-capped winters, a world of adventure in the springtime.

He kissed her on the cheek. “It’s time for me to go. It’ll be okay.”

For the first time, he believed it. And when the girl with yellow hair smiled, he knew she did too.