The sun was conspicuously set in the horizon while the sky slowly began to hum aquamarine. Susana looks quietly at Oliver. This wasn't a good morning. They both looked like two broken winged birds swinging on the front porch swing. Neither of them had it in them to fly and migrate away from each other.
"Oliver, I think it would be best if we took a break," said Susana.
"I was thinking of that too, Susana," Oliver replied.
"The silence between us is too overwhelming," Susana said softly.
"Susana, I believe we don't have much to say anymore to each other."
"Oliver, that's unfortunately true. I wish it wasn't."
The birds sung their spring song waking even the most uncaring of men. Oliver looks at Susana, taking in her honey gold hair, and brown mud eyes for the last time.
"I believe it's best for us to leave it as it is Susana. I should go now."
"Oliver, wait it can't be so fast."
"No, Susana. It has to be. If I stay I'm afraid I'll get the urge to kiss you."
Susana watches him lift his broken and bruised spirit up. He lifts himself sorely and began to fly away. She's stuck in the confusion of not knowing what to do next. She wants to follow him but there is too much weight flapping her heart down. She can only watch as he creates greater distance between them. His body's outline becomes a spec of dirt and vanishes.
"What about our nest, Oliver?" Susana whispers to herself.
Susana touches her stomach thinks about the children they'll never have or name. She sings a defeated song, gives out her wailing tune, and cries. It had to come to this. Oliver cheated on her. It wasn't strength that had him fly away . It was guilt and shame. There is no place among the twigs here for him to sleep alongside Susana loyally.
Susana shoots herself up and walks away from her house. Slowly she starts to fly her way towards him. She sees the feathers of his hair blow around the air by winds coming in. She begins to run.
"Oliver, don't go!"
She huffs as her breath dwindles. Her lungs expand too quickly and tightly. She sees him nowhere in sight. She trips on a rock. Trying to get some support she sinks her nails into the Earth. She throws leaves, twigs, and rocks into the air. She fails to perch herself up. Susana cries into her palms and gives in to letting Oliver go. She realizes he ran away instead of facing his own mistakes. He ran away with no apology. He ran to save himself from his urges. Ran away from breaking down vulnerably in front of her.
"What would have a kiss done to us?"
Oliver went into the unknown. Not knowing whether I would have let him kiss me or not. That in itself let him cling onto a fragment of false hope.
"Oh, Oliver." Susana whispers quietly into the Earth and closes her eyes never knowing how to fly again.
© Raquel Campos
