Wicked Lovely

There were things in this devastatingly cruel world that were unchangeable, no matter how hard you try. Sometimes life just throws you a curveball, and you so desperately try to catch it that, in the end, it simply slips through your tender grasp.

"Delaney!"

She turned her head and smiled at the boy with hair the colour of gold. He wrapped his strong arms around her waist and planted a kiss on her lips, sending warmth coursing throughout her body. "Mm?"

He laughed. Something cold-something metallic-was placed in her hands, and she could barely contain her excitement. He'd done it. The boy's laughter only grew louder as her mouth hung open. "You're not serious?"

"Deadly. I got us the car."

Delaney's eyes lit up, and the boy's smile only widened. It was as if the entire world had smiled down upon them, because finally something had gone right in a sea of wrong. "I can't believe this!" Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held onto him as tightly as she could.

The boy placed one hand on her cheek, and another gripped her waist. "We're getting there, Darling. Soon I'll be able to give you the world."

Shaking her head, Delaney spoke softly, "but, I already have the world."

He tenderly placed a finger over her red lips, silencing her. "You know what I meant." Indeed, she did know what his words had truly meant. For in reality, their life was filled with nothing extraordinary. They were simply ordinary people, living ordinary lives, in extraordinarily hard circumstances. "We're going to have it all, one day. We won't have to live in this tiny house wondering if we're going to be able to put food on the table. I'm going to give you the world."

Yet, what he didn't realize was that she didn't need the world. She only needed his arms wrapped around her waist; she only needed to know he was there. Raising her eyebrows, Delaney shook the keys in front of his cerulean eyes as they swirled with emotion.

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. "Let's go!"

"Slow down," he yelled laughing as he too began to run after her.

As the happy couple raced out the door with their head in the clouds, and nothing but love in their hearts, another scene began to play out, but a few blocks away.

~

The smell of whiskey was thick in the air, and an empty bottle stood upright in the corner of a musky smelling apartment. Rubbing his overgrown beard, Robert Greensburrow stood and then stumbled. There was something he needed to do, but his head was a jumbled mess. He could not think, and his vision was blurred, but there was something he needed to do. Something he desperately needed to do.

Alcohol had become his outlet, something he used to hide his pain, to mask the life he so desperately wished to escape. He couldn't walk straight, but there was something he needed to do. There was some place he needed to be. And then he saw a dusty picture, a picture he'd forgotten existed.

There he stood smiling, something he couldn't bring himself to do any longer, minus a beer induced gut with his three children. They clung to him, and a single tear travelled the length of his face.

The cemetery.

Through his mess of thought he somehow remembered, today was a very special day. Today was an anniversary, but a somber one. He stumbled once more as he threw the picture at the wall, the glass shattering into a thousand tiny pieces. He needed to leave. That much he was able to determine as he began to put one foot in front of the other- it proved to be a daunting task. Eventually, he was able to make his way to the elevator, and then the parking lot, and then, stumbling, he opened the door to his rusty old car.