Love Untainted

The sun is warm on William’s face, and he closes his eyes to soak in the peace he feels in this moment. His eyes stay shut as he listens to feet shuffling in the grass and notices his weight against the familiar feel of wood beneath him. He recognizes her footsteps before she even reaches the bench and opens his eyes eagerly. It’s been a year exactly since he’s seen her, and while he understands the reason for the distance they keep, he can’t help the feeling of not being completely whole without her. But the moment his eyes crash into hers, he feels he’s drowning in them. His breath catches at the sight of her, and he has almost forgotten the way she always had the power to leave him completely breathless just by simply existing. He studies them for a moment too long, noting the greenish blue that could color the sea. He memorizes their color, the specks of brown sprinkled around her irises, knowing after today he won’t get to see them for a while. Her eyes, he thinks, represent her in the most beautiful way because their color embodies the world.

“Will”, she gives him a smile that he suddenly feels the sun’s warmth could never compete with.

She takes a seat beside him, hesitant but tender in a familiar way. William smiles deeply in response to her, but they don’t say anything further. They don’t need to. The mutual presence of one another is enough. They both feel as though, for the first time all year, they are completely understood in the anguish that is their reality. Freya notices the affection radiating from her former love…her former self, and for the first time since she arrived, she allows herself to momentarily take William in. Her chest feels as heavy as her heart permanently does, and she tries to rectify this with a deep breath. Her eyes travel to the blossoming flowers that brush the toes wrapped in her sandals, and the way they sway against the wind. She notices how their stems caress the grass, holding them up, and looks at the strangers walking past her. She wonders about the lives they lead. The thoughts of those around her momentarily distract her from her own, but not for long. Freya notices the way William has his hands clasped within each other; he does this with a certain determination, as if those hands are the only thing holding his heart together. She keeps her eyes pinned on them, looking anywhere but his eyes, because looking into his eyes means meeting her daughter’s as well, and she cannot bear to be reminded of the fact that the world was robbed of that beauty. Her beauty. William sees this, the way she avoids their eyes, and he isn’t angry at that fact. Because he sees his daughter in Freya’s eyes as well, and so he looks enough for both of them. Freya notices this and feels overwhelmed by the amount of understanding and gentleness he carries for her. For a moment, she is taken back to a time of simplicity, a time when they sat on this very bench and planned their lives together. She finds herself leaning into a love once untainted by tragedy and can almost taste the excitement they both felt for the lives they never doubted they’d have with one another.

“Do you remember when we first met?” She asks, startling even herself with the fond memory.

He smiles at the thought of simpler times. “Of course.”

“So much has changed since then. Like…not even with just us, but everything. Isn’t that odd? How the world just keeps spinning despite it all?”

She’s quiet for a long moment before she continues. “I mean, even if you tried, I don’t think you could ever quantify the amount of agony and despair that billions of people go through in a single lifetime. It would make up more than the number of people on this earth…and off of it since the beginning of time.”

William nods as he considers this for a moment before deciding to put the thought aside for now and focus on Freya and their fleeting time together.

“How have you been?” He asks with a certain delicacy.

She smiles softly in response as she feels an unfamiliar hope for her answer in the years to come. However, her answer this year is the same as it’s always been. She looks at him with a fleeting glance, and he nods in acceptance, understanding once again. Even so, she experiences a glimmering hope that it may be lighter the next time she hears that question from his lips.

“You?” She questions, her voice barely audible.

He feels the weight of her words and lets himself truly consider his own question for the first time in years. He takes an instinctive breath and feels like the world around him carries less oxygen. He ponders the lack of air he feels in his lungs and tries to remember a time when taking a deep breath didn’t feel the same as slowly suffocating.

“I can’t seem to get enough air. It doesn’t matter how deep the breath or how many times I try…and I try a lot. I just feel like I’m slowly losing more and more, and I have this fear that one day I’m going to go for a breath and there will be nothing left to take.”

She takes a moment to respond, but when she does, it’s with confidence. “I think she took it with her.” She nods as she says this.

“Like when she stopped, so did we. I think maybe I’m okay with that, because a big part of me doesn’t even want it without her.”

“Yeah.” It is the only response he can give, fearing he won’t be able to voice the words if he continues any further.

Tears brim in his eyes, and he shuts them in an attempt to shut out the pain threatening to shatter him. Again, he focuses solely on the sounds around him. The sound of the insects buzzing with life is almost deafening, and he finds it strange that he hadn’t noticed them until now. He tunes into the noise, letting it drown out everything inside him. What an odd thing it must be to live like them. So small in a world that could swallow you whole. He thinks of their short lifespan and how they have no choice but to live each day to the fullest, not knowing if it could be their last. He finds this both beautiful and devastating, all at the same time. He can’t help but compare this feeling to their yearly encounter with one another: both beautiful and devastating.

“You know if you flip it— the result is still the same?”

She looks at him briefly, revealing the questioning look on her face.

“The thing you said about not being able to count all of the despair. It’s the same for love.”

She pauses for a moment, letting the idea take hold of her. “I suppose it is. Because both are immeasurable.”

He nods in agreement, looking up at the puffy white clouds that fill the sky. Staring at the monumental landscape above him, he suddenly feels as small as the insects he hears because both of them are capable of being swallowed whole by the vastness of the world around them.

“How peculiar: to feel so grand yet so insignificant at the same time.” He muses.

“Yes…how peculiar it is to be alive.” She takes another deep breath, as if to build up her confidence. And before she knows it, Freya looks into the boldness of Williams' eyes for the longest moment in years, and it feels like time itself stops. Their eyes stay pinned on one another for a long moment before she finally tears them away from his to look up at the sky they both share.

They sit with each other until the light of the sun morphs into what seems like hundreds of stars. They don’t go into their outside lives any further because on this bench, their outside lives don’t matter. On this bench, the lives they spend more time pretending than living are distant, untouchable in this moment. They cherish each other and the infinite love they feel for one another, knowing they are the only two people in their existence who could understand the effort it takes to simply breathe in a world without their oxygen. On this bench, they carry the weight of their world lost and remember a time when their love was once untainted.