Goodbye Kiss

He didn’t kiss me goodbye.

We had a fight the night before. Nothing that couldn't easily be fixed, I don't think. Normally we don’t ever go to bed without resolving the issue and finding a solution but for some reason, last night, that didn’t happen.

I sat at the dining room table, sipping my coffee as I watched him rush around the kitchen. I went over in my head of all the thing I could say to make this better. To help make a good start to his day but the words eluded me. The right words never came before it was too late, and he was already on his way out the door.

He gathered all his things that he needed for work and was already at the door. I opened my mouth to say something when he paused at the threshold of our home, his hand on the doorknob. I held my breath and waited for him to turn around, to say something. To DO something. But he was gone before I could let out the oxygen in my lungs.

I didn’t hesitate before I ran to the window where a pot of fresh marigolds sat facing the driveway where he was about to get in his car. I frantically knocked on the window. Pressing my hands against the glass, he finally turned to look at me with a question in his chocolate brown eyes. With hope that everything will be okay and a hesitant smile I pressed my lips hard against the pristine glass, miming that I was giving him a big kiss. He smiled and shook his head as he opened the door. I fogged up the glass and wrote “I love you” before it could fade away. His smile grew bigger as he mouthed the sentiment back to me.

He backed down the driveway as I waved goodbye, neither of us having the slightest idea that he would never get the chance to see me again.

It was dark when I opened my eyes. I rubbed at my eyes as I tried to remember where I've been.

My eyes finally came into focus as the living room walls adorned with pictures of our family came into view. Pictures of our wedding. Our engagement photos, even pictures of us as kids. My eyes burned with the flash of headlights that highlighted our most precious memories.

How did I get here? I sat up on the couch and wracked my brain for the last thing that I remember. I was on my way to surprise Ryan at work for lunch and to talk. I rubbed at my temples as a flash of memory forced its way into my brain. A squeal of tires... Overwhelming sense of nausea as everything outside the windshield kept rolling... The sickening crunch as my head smacked against the driver’s side window. Then... nothing. It all went black.

The realization of my untimely fate came in a rush as the jingling of keys caught my attention. I bolted towards the window and watched Ryan as he stood on our front porch, eyeing the porch swing that I made him buy for me. The second I saw it; I couldn't help but imagine rocking our babies to sleep in it or holding hands in our old age as we watch the sunset.

Tears welled in my eyes the longer it took him to get up the strength to put the keys in the lock and come inside. Watching him verified what I already knew, and my heart broke for him. My heart broke for us and everything we haven't shared yet. The babies I was supposed to give him. The plans we made. Sobs caught in my chest the more I watched him.

He finally managed to open the door just enough to stand barely inside the threshold but refused to fully enter. His dark blonde hair was tousled and yanked in all sorts of different angles like he’s been running his fingers through it. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot as the tears began to well in them as he looked over at the marigolds in the windowsill.

When I looked at them, I realized he wasn’t just staring at the marigolds. I never washed the window before I left so my handprints and the smudge of my rosy pink lip gloss still adorned the glass.

I heard something heavy hit the floor and turned to look at Ryan as he fell to his knees, his head buried in his hands in grief, his forehead resting on the tile floor as he let out a heart wrenching sob that wouldn’t let up.

Not sure as to what to do, I knelt beside him. My hands hovered over his hunched back as I tried to comfort him the best I could.

“I’m so sorry Dez,” he whispered through broken sobs, “I should’ve come back. I should’ve made things right,” He lifted his head to the ceiling and screamed in agony, “It should’ve been me!”

Tears kept falling down my face, “Don’t blame yourself Ryan, I’m right here. I’m…” I wanted to tell him I’m okay, but not only would he not hear me, it also wouldn’t be true. I’m dead. That is about as not okay as it gets.

I wanted him to know that I was here. He needed to know. I stood, looking around the room for something that I can knock down or push over. Something that he would, without a doubt, know it was me. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the marigolds again. Walking over to the pot, I concentrated all my energy on making it move. I watched with satisfaction as the pot came crashing to the floor, the flowers instantly crumbling under its weight and all I heard was silence.

I finally got the courage to look at Ryan, who was still kneeling on the floor but was staring at the shattered pot in disbelieve.

“Dez? Is that you?” He looked around the room as if he was expecting me to just come into existence at the sound of my name.

Kneeling in front of him, I put as much energy as I had left into my hand as I held it to his face. He stiffened under my touch as more tears fell down his cheeks, “I love you.”

With those words, I watched his body slacken with some sense of relief as I was embraced in the warm light that beckoned to me to come home