Her Goodbye [✔]

Five Minutes

Seven days after the death of Miss Summers, Connor Hanes had decided to visit the Summers household. He had blue in his cheeks and red stained eyes. The night before this, Tilly Summers had informed him that she'd read and destroyed her letter and he was set on opening his soon after. Sitting in the hamper was a red envelope and in gold cursive letters was his name, clear as day. He didn't want to cry, he wanted to be strong, he didn't want to show anyone that this girl had an effect on him that he'd never, ever be able to shake off. This was the girl that had changed his life; and this was the girl he had made so many mistakes with that he wished to take back.

Mrs Summers set a mug of hot cocoa on the kitchen table with a plate of cookies, and then took Henry in her arms and left the house without saying a word towards the boy. He had looked around the home, and his wandering eyes found no trace of Mr Summers, neither of the young Tilly. So he carefully took the bread knife from the table and slit the top of the envelope and poured its contents out on to the surface. He noted the golden bracelet that had landed with a clash. He sighed, and pulled up the crisp white card for the table's surface.

"Dear Connor,

I know you hate goodbyes, so I'm glad we hadn't seen each other on that day – I don't think I'd of been able to truly leave you without breaking down. When you came up from work in the summer, you told me I was distant and detached, and there was a reason for that my love.

We watched each other growing up from the age of six, and you haven't left my side really, since the day we met in the playground. There are so many memories that I wish I could write down here, but that'd take a book, a whole book for every laugh, cry and smile that we engraved into stones together. I need you to know that all of them will last forever, always. You have always found the best in me and simply for that I feel blessed, and I always will feel that way. What would my life have been like without you? 

I have enclosed the bracelet you gave me on our fourth anniversary. You said it was for that anyway, I could have sworn with my life that it was because of the blood you'd seen days before. I assumed it was your way of saying we were together, and we could get through anything.

So, I hope, I truly hope that If I give you this, It will help you be strong too. This is torturous for me, trust me.

Only now have I come to terms with the fact that I will never see you again. I know it'll be painful for me, and perhaps for you; actually more so for you. Please take a deep breath and start each day smiling, knowing that I'll always be living with you somehow. I know things are painful and complicated at first but you have to promise me Connor, that you will never change who you are. You are remarkable, handsome, talented and hilarious.

I know we did not work out, even if it seems I had forgotten. You were my first love and managed to stay in my heart regardless of any other situation. You are forever someone I shall look upon with nothing but glee. 

From the moment I met you, I knew we'd be more than friends, I fell for you hard.

Connor, I never, ever, want you to feel like nothing, and don't feel like you were to blame for this either, this was my choice, Katie's choice, we'd been planning the event for years, and that's my only regret – I got closer and closer to you, knowing that this was going to happen.

You're strong enough to get through life without me now.

I love you. I love you so much it hurts to finish this without writing down everything I love about you,

Maya."

It seemed harder now to form emotions. Connor had always been visually emotional, but he couldn't bring himself to move. She was really gone, he had thought as he placed the card down. He felt like gripping his hair, and pulling it out of his head. If he knew any better, he'd run off the that cliff side, past the police barriers, and scream over the edge that she wasn't gone.

He'd picked up the coffee mug, and poured a few drops of it on to the card surface, then grasped the lighter from his pocket, and watch it tear apart. Deep down he knew she'd have been disappointed by his lack of emotions, and she was.