Marigold
Orient heights, East Boston
United States of America
Present
Aged eighteen
I sat at the edge of the empty pier staring at the ghastly, lonely sea.. The wind didn't move. not really. it hovered like it had forgotten how to breathe, brushing against my skin only to remind me it partially existed. everything around me was painfully still. not in the calm welcoming way but in the way that felt like a void unyielding, almost as if the world itself was holding it's breath while I broke. I stared at my reflection in the water and for a moment I thought I saw her. Me, but not really me--- the girl I used to be, six year old me, bright-eyed and careless soul, laughing without thinking, believing in a world built on innocence and love so fierce it could make your heart burst, a love that would last for eternities.
But here I am eighteen years later, hollowed out and deranged of my childhood innocence, just on the brink of heartbreak by the boy I once vowed to give my forever to.
We were just kids when we made that promise believing love could survive anything --"I'll follow you wherever you go, even if there were no stars left to lit up the sky, I'd be your star, if there were no path beneath our feet I'd feel you, fate would lead us back to each other. If there were no music to guide our hearts I'd listen for the tender rhythmatic melody of your heartbeat and find my way back to you. we swore... pinky promised back then that we would find our way back no matter what stood in between.
But now, it feels like nothing more than a fairytale I believed too hard in.
The boy I loved back then no longer exists. He's gone. The one I thought had me wrapped safely inside his heart forever is the same one who is about to shatter my soul in ways I never imagined possible I no longer recognize his anymore.
That boy-- Atlas.
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The pier creaked beside me familiar footsteps grew, slow and uneven, every time we came here I could feel his presence inching towards me I knew those footsteps the way your heart recognizes home.
Atlas sat beside me softly, almost cautiously, and the space between us filled a familiar, bittersweet silence. He then turned his head in my direction, careful an restrained.
"I"m leaving in seventeen hours" Atlas rubbed his thumb against his palm, eyes now affixed on the still water.
"Do you really have to do this to me?" I choked, my voice trembling and shaky as tears gathered behind my lashes.
He swallowed hard, and I could see the weight of it in the way his shoulders slumped, the way his jaw clenched "Goldie...my sunshine.. I don't want to. I wish I didn't have to"
something lit dimly inside me.. "Goldie" the nickname he had given me. The one he always said meant I was his sunshine on a rainy day.
"Then why?" My voice cracked louder than I meant, my breath now warm in the crisp air as I spoke "Why does it feel like you're tearing me apart for your own peace?"
He looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw it—the same heartbreak mirrored in his eyes. "Because staying… it would be worse. For both of us."
I shook my head, words failing me, tears streaming freely now. "Worse? Atlas… leaving is breaking me in ways I don't think I can survive."
He reached for my hand, slow and careful, and I flinched, though I wanted nothing more than to hold him. "I know," he said, his voice low, shaking. "I know it hurts. God, Goldie… it hurts me too."
He nodded, pain flashing across his face. "It's not because I want to. My parents… they think moving is the only way the family can have a chance at stability. Better jobs, better opportunities, a future we couldn't have if we stayed here. I don't get a choice. They're forcing me to go."
I stared at him an felt my heart broke in a million pieces all over again. "And us? What about us?" I sputtered
He looked down, jaw tight. "I've tried to fight it… I've tried, Goldie. But staying would only make everything worse. I can't stay without tearing apart the life my family needs. And leaving… leaving me breaks my heart too, but it's the only way I can protect you from being hurt even more.
His hands curled into fists, trembling now. "It's their word against mine. I don't get a choice." His eyes filled, and when he looked at me again, they were glassy and wrecked. "If I ever had a choice, I would've never left the love of my life for nothing. Never."
His voice gave in completely then. Tears slipped free, silent, and inevitable. something in my chest shattered at the sight of him like this.
"I feel so helpless, Goldie," he whispered. "God, I tried everything. I fought them. I begged. But it's just… it's not working out."
I moved without thinking, closing the space between us. I wrapped my arms around him as he folded into me, his forehead pressing against my shoulder, his breath warm against my neck, uneven and broken.
I held him tighter than I ever had before, In that moment, nothing else existed. The world could have waited; all that mattered was him.
"It's okay," I whispered, even though it wasn't. "I know you tried. I know."
He stayed pressed against me for a long moment, as if memorizing the shape of my shoulder, the warmth of my body. My chest heaved with tears I couldn't stop, and something in him shifted—something desperate and raw. Slowly, tentatively at first, his lips brushed against my temple, soft and fleeting, and my heart clenched at the tenderness.
Then he moved, closer, and my breath caught. His forehead rested against mine, his hands cradling my face with a care that made me ache. "Goldie…" he whispered, voice trembling, "I love you."
And then—he kissed me.
His lips found mine I tasted him—warm, faintly bitter, with the sweetness I had memorized since we were kids and it made my chest ache with longing and dread all at once.
The kiss deepened, urgent now, desperate, as though we were trying to burn this moment into forever before reality tore it away.
His hands cradled my face, thumbs brushing over my cheekbones, anchoring me as if I might float away, while mine tangled in his hair, desperate to hold him closer. I clutched his shoulders, my fingers tangled in the back of his neck, needing him to be here, needing him not to leave. Every heartbeat between us was a jagged reminder that love this fierce shouldn't be possible, and yet here it was, raw and consuming.
We broke apart only for the briefest second, out of breath, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling, hearts hammering in the same rhythm. And even then, I could feel the kiss lingering in every nerve, every taste of him burned into me, His lips tasted like him—warm and familiar, with the faint tang of salt from his urgent breaths.
A memory I would feel in my chest every moment he wasn't here.