Flashback Four
Grace
Then – Six Months Since Leaving
The silence has stretched far longer than I’d ever anticipated.
I always thought we were unbreakable; that despite anything the world may throw at us, we’d make it through.
But the fact that I’m sitting here alone, in the city we’d planned the next several years of our lives in, not having spoken to him for three months, shatters that illusion.
It’s been six long months since I last saw Tucker’s face.
At first, I didn’t have the slightest doubt that he’d come.
He needed some time with his family, to grieve, but he was always going to come back to me.
It’s only now that I realize how gradually time has stripped all faith.
The worst part, though, is that I don’t even feel like I can grieve the loss of Tucker.
It happened so slowly, drawn out over increasing stretches of silence.
He was working on the ranch, I had school.
He was helping out with his siblings, I was interviewing for jobs.
We were like passing ships in the night; near enough to see, but too far to make out each other’s shouts for connection.
I had him, and then I didn’t. It’s as heartbreakingly simple as that.