Break of Day

5) A Miserable Farewell

The English philosopher Aldous Huxley once hypothesised that the world we know may be another planet's hell.

In this moment, I was thoroughly convinced that he may have been onto something as my best friend picked at my sleeve, her arm in mine as we walked along the empty road, the only sidewalk outside of town. The sky, a cast dome of cerulean blue, embraced the setting sun with eager arms. Its wisps of cotton candy clouds stretch across the canvas, edges kissed by the warming colours of an oncoming twilight. The chirping of crickets filling the air, their rhythmic cadence a testament to the arriving night, carried on the warm breeze, a nice addition to the warmth still left from the day's heat.

How would the world carry on the same as before, as if the distance between us was nothing?

"Are you positive you have to go?" Her voice was quiet before pressing her latte to her lips, displaying the stain on her white and navy blue scrunchie. At least something seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. The memory of today would forever be stained into its fabric.

My eyes followed a small brown bird as it hopped along the dry dirt, pecking at cracks in the earth. "Carlton has to start flying again and Maria demands to go with him." Pressing the tea Lex bought me in the little shop she has been trying to get me to go to for months to my lips, I focused on the smoothness of the liquid. Sending a wish into the world, I hoped the gentle sweetness of the jasmine would work as well as the seller said it would. "Mary heard Maria yelling about it the other night when Carlton was trying to convince her to stay with us."

"You could live with me again. Mom wouldn't mind," she offered before tipping her cup back. "She loves you more than she loves Joey." A silence found us as the sun dipped low enough to infuse the wispy clouds with warm shades of amber and golden, shaping them into pools of molten honey in the dying cerulean sky.

The sleeve of her rolled up oversized red sweater clung to the sleeve of my soft pink crop top, the puffy sleeves seeming to be stitched to hers.

I shook my head, unruly strands of hair slipping from my braid. "I haven't seen Dad for years, Lex. I—" My gaze traced the landscape for the distant lowing of cattle. She wasn't wrong. Molly would love it if I stayed with them, especially under good circumstances. While she may not love me more than her eldest son, I was certainly her favourite child. "I miss him." The sinking sun bathed the land in a gentle glow, casting long shadows as the world absorbed the last remnants of light. "Besides, I'll be back next year and for every holiday, if Maria has her way."

"I know, but I have gotten used to being around." Her warm eyes flickered around my face, a glimmer of hope against the knowledge of the surety of my leaving. "So has Allie." An image of the smiling, chubby-faced brunette pretending to read one of my books absorbed my mind.

Another person to miss. Another hole torn through the carefully constructed world I had spent the last three years perfecting.

She wasn't even old enough for grade school, how could she understand this? One minute I am here, holding her in my lap as she holds my book open for me, giggling as I read it to her, the next I have disappeared for half a year.

My throat tightens around the stones bubbling up as I watch the intensifying colours of the world as the molten gold clouds take transformation as the sun approaches the horizon, igniting into a symphony of fiery oranges and blazing reds intermingled with the unveiling shades of pink and magenta, delicate and soft like the petals of a blooming wildflower. As if nature herself dipped her brush in the palette of dreams, the sky appears to be ablaze, as if the heavens themselves are aflame with the intensity of the setting sun. The fading sun's rays fanned out like a celestial fan, casting a mesmerising display of light and shadow across the land. The silhouettes of cacti stood tall against the backdrop, their forms etched in striking contrast.