Simple words

Fiction...

He watched her walk down the stairs and out of his life forever.

She'd given him a new lease on life. But it was like the rose that blooms but for just an hour.

He'd first seen her, years ago, in a faded photograph. He'd been taken by her beauty, by the gentle goodness of her face, by the warmth in her eyes. And he finally saw her, and spoke to her, one fall afternoon just before Thanksgiving. He'd lost the words, time had taken them from him, but he knew in that brief moment his life was changed forever.

"You can come to my house for the holidays," she'd said, and part of him thought she meant it. It wasn't until later that he found out that everything he'd dreamed about her was true.

And yet it didn't come close to describing her beauty.

So she went on this crisp night in early autumn, and as she descended the stairs, his heart sank deep into the dark place, into the abyss with which he was all too familiar.

"Goodbye," she'd said.

It's the simple words that hurt the most.