The summer sun leaked its rays into the entryway. Facing south, this room was always well-lit and bright and during slower times I liked to sit at my front desk, chair turned, and watch the world go by. The trees swaying in the salty breeze played nicely with the moving images of passersby. Often I would see families, content with their lives and each other, stroll down the street just outside here.

All too often and without thinking I would find myself standing at the window, my small hand against the large pane. I found myself imagining us in their place with a child we'd never know. Seeing their happy faces I couldn't help but feel jealous for the life I'd always wanted, but would never have.

How I missed you.

It'd been a few months since I left Hagali, the life I once knew along with it. What started so different from whence I came just turned into the same monster I'd run from so long ago. Nowhere was my home, nobody was my neighbor. Eventually, too, nobody was my partner. They took you from me, and without you I was nothing.

I had always been nothing. They liked to say, anyway. The rhetoric hadn't changed from where it all began but it didn't terrify me any less, either. Rather, like a hook and line, it pulled up the deepest and most vile memories from the back of my head to be relived all over again. I...tried to do what I could to keep our dream alive-- I couldn't give you children of our own, but we could take in those the world didn't want. I scrambled to sell off anything I still had for any price people would offer and fled as far south as my short legs would carry me.

Anything to get away from them.

After some time I could see the ocean off into the distance. It must have been at least a month since I fled, I wasn't too sure. After so many days of the same things, the same feelings, everything melts into one another. No longer had I another at my side to guide me, to help me through these hard times. I kicked myself for not trying harder to convince you to leave. Maybe if I had you'd still be here with me.

The only one I ever trusted.

The only one I ever loved.

Somehow you could see through my bitterness, past my walls to the shrinking, scared child I really was. Somehow the redness of my eyes wouldn't deter you. I was -- am -- small and fragile, but you helped me start over with a life I could call my own. We couldn't change where I came from, we couldn't change the experiences I went through, but I could choose where to go from here. By focusing so much on what had been, I was blind to what could be. You would be there every step of the way, your hand in mine, you said.

...Maybe I'm crazy, but sometimes I think I still feel your presence. It was, and still is, much of what keeps me going.

When I got here I had only the clothes on my back, a small bag of effects, and the money we'd saved. Fortunately they had a large, empty building looking for an owner. I bought it immediately and began renovations as soon as I had time. I would do anything to keep this dream alive.

For me. For you.

The building was well-kept so it didn't take very long, maybe a few weeks. New furniture, clean floors, and more things to come once orders were fulfilled. I stood back and took in the sight of this behemoth of a building, my hand reaching to my side for a hand it wouldn't find. I turned and looked to see only the empty road beside me. For some reason I remember feeling surprised.

The sea breeze came by and swept through my messy hair, whispering sweet nothings into my flattened ears as I looked to my empty hand. The chapters of my life to come would be very difficult without you here, but I would still try to make of them what I could. You would say that the best revenge is a life lived well, so...I would try.

My fingernails would gently tap and scrape the window glass as I reached for a life I longed for, but like the glass, there was always something in the way. Sometimes they would notice me and wave and I would try my best to smile and wave back-- and for the first time in a long time, without fear.

The people here were like us. I could leave this building and enter the public without fear or harassment, without getting chased down the street and assailed. I ran my nails across my torso, feeling the marks of a previous life through my shirt. At least here, should something like this happen to me it would be for my mistakes, not for what I was. I could live with that.

I looked up at the sky, now yellowing. It would be sunset soon and thus it would be time to eat. I turned away from the window and looked at my shadow cast upon the floor, much taller than I. I allowed myself a tiny smile at my own expense as the soft commotion of footsteps and dishes reverberated down the hallway. Seemed the couple volunteers took notice of the time as well.

I took a step toward the hallway to see myself to the kitchen, but stopped as though someone had pulled my reins. The shadow I'd cast had vanished. I turned my head to take one more look outside-- in no time the sky had grown dark and the town stood still as though frozen in time.

We were in for a storm.

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