Well, we know I’m going away
and how I wish, I wish it weren’t so
So take this wine and drink with me
let’s delay our misery
Eagle Eye Cherry – Save Tonight
Last night.
Tomorrow I’m saying goodbye to everything I’ve ever known, to every dear, native, unbearable or hated part of my life. I will leave behind my whole existence up to that moment… and I don’t know if I would find a way back some day.
The security is over.
From that point on I will have to face the great unknown.
I have no idea how I drifted off to sleep… my mind is so restless and anxious that I thought I wouldn’t blink before I have boarded the plane.
Anyway, who falls asleep during the last night they have with someone they might never see again? You steal every minute so you can feel more, so you can rediscover all those details you have never really noticed before, so you can taste more of them, to have more of them, to tattoo every last instant on your skin and fix a seal on that part of your brain that is saved especially for that night.
That’s the only way for you to recreate that memory in your delusional mind during the long, lonely nights ahead when your fingers would involuntarily reach out to touch between your legs and the suppressed tears would slowly roll down your cheeks.
I raise myself up from the bed at the airport hotel room, I open my drowsy eyes while my hand feverishly searches for him by my side. My body is pierced by a sudden pang of fear. I smile in relief when I see him standing by the window.
He is watching the lights outside… in a completely expressionless way.
I wish I could tell him something… Something sweet and comforting. I want to give him a small goodbye gift he can keep hidden in the folds of his mind.
But I can’t think of anything. What could you possibly say when every line sounds like a meaningless film cliché? It would be better if you let the silence linger.
I get startled by the sound of his voice.
“A few hours from that moment I will send you away and I will wait until your flight takes off. I can tell you now that I will not cry, I will not shed even a tear. Your friends will be staring at me with frown on their faces. They will whisper like old gossipers. ‘What a bastard, he didn’t even tremble.’ I will not cry even when your plane gets lost somewhere far in the distance. I am just no good in that. But… that doesn’t mean I will not miss you.”
I jump but before I had a chance to say anything he comes to me, places a finger on my lips and gives me one surprisingly bright smile.
“I wanted you to know that.”
He kisses me slowly and goes to the bathroom.
I stay there with my hands on my chest, by my heart. I’ve got the feeling I was given the most precious gift – far more valuable than all the cheesy scenes and a torrent of “I will always love you” type of lines.
***
He kept his promise.
His face was still that devoid of emotions while he was accompanying me during all the tedious procedures before my flight.
Last night.
Last minutes.
Last kiss.
He asked me not to promise I would write to him and that I would call him.
He asked me not to turn back.
That’s all he asked of me.
I kissed him for the last time like a passionate and desperate predator, I turned my back on him, I went on my way… and I never saw him again.
I don’t know why he cut the ties with me and why we didn’t try the long distance relationship. Probably I will never learn the exact answer.
Probably he didn’t want to have to go through another outcome with a twang of a soap opera. He wouldn’t bear to see the indifference in my eyes. He wouldn’t want to feel its insipid taste himself.
Maybe it was for the best.
All I know is that from that moment every airport and anonymous hotel room would bring me back the memory of that night.
All I know is that a single Goodbye may mean much more than I love you or I will be waiting for you.