#Goodbye Letters: Burned-out lover

This post is the first short story from a brand new series called “Goodbye Letters”, in which each letter is written by the ones going away or by the ones that were left. Some of them may further evolve and be continued in following posts. Please, bear in mind that these short stories are published with minimal review to foster blog-style, raw and realistic creative writing.

The first letter was written by Ana (fictional character), whose burned-out lover passed away.

I miss you so much, my Love. Can you just stop hiding and come back?

We’d been married for six years when I got a call I’d hope I would never get. We had some rough years along the way, and we were still working together to be better for each other, but I would give everything I could to have the worst time back instead of this void that has me trapped and this numbness I’m feeling right now. I never thought that an entire life would be gone just in less than a second. I feel like I was beaten up in a bar fight, in a scene I’d never pictured myself in actually, now severely hung over from who knows what, without even remembering drinking or taking anything that would drag my body down this way.

I guess everyone must be asking themselves what the hell happened to you that day. Some may think you just run away and called me to say you were about to start over or that you got some new sweetheart to be with. Others may just think you’re dead, and they are damn right!

I received that awful call just a couple of hours after they found you. They told me you had missed work for two days already and nobody could get in touch with you. It seemed like my heart knew something was wrong as I’d been trying to call you and kept getting no answer back either. But I didn’t think you’d be gone, I just thought you were mad at me as I wanted you to spend more time with me than working abroad all the time. I missed you. I wanted you to get some time for yourself too, to relax and experience joy, to engage with the world, to live, to be you and not that underpaid robot with a company badge that was falling apart, piece by piece, although without no one knowing it yet.

When people ask me how I’m feeling now, I quite don’t know what to answer them as I’d lost part of you long ago, although I always imagined I would retrieve it all back somehow. Well, we lived together for one week, whenever you were back to Madrid from Toronto, Vancouver or whatever another city you were assigned to, after every four weeks working abroad. I tried keeping up with you, moving abroad at first, but we soon realized I was there all alone so better to get back home and be surrounded by people who would have time to hang around. You would then get home tired from the flight (can someone imagine flying every month for hours on those tight economy seats?), all the previous trips and stressful projects building up month after month, the “up all night” recurring scene and sleep-unfriendly always-on lights from cities that never rest… So, we can’t really call “quality time” to those days together, can we?

I’m sorry, I’m now all tangled up in words and random memories, mostly bad we could say because of this deep sadness and anger of having to let you go when I kept trying my best to never lose you! This is the goodbye letter I’m writing to you, for sure not the one I’m reading at your memorial tomorrow while my heart clings on some last sparkles of old happy memories trying to gasp some air and somehow brightly glow again. I’m supposed to tell everyone good things about you, but all I can focus on right now is the life that was taken from you while you accepted it like you couldn’t do anything about it, and that forced me to be this widow. I wish you were here to tell them about you and all your mysteries I’m not that familiar with, but I guess that is no longer possible… but I’ll do my best to tell them how your life was, my love!

Meanwhile, this is my goodbye to you… Please, don’t give up on us wherever you are because I still need you so much!

Love,
Ana

Please leave your comments and suggestions below 🙂 I really want to know what you think and how you feel about it. I’m also open to suggestions and collaborations, so reach out!

Thanks and see you soon,
Andreia