Lost Stars

xxvi. zenith

10 Years Later...

"Hey mom, I'm in the airport right now. I wanted to surprise you. Miss Greene gave me a week off from work, and I decided that coming back home was a better option than being alone back in New York. Call me when you get this message." Elle excitedly beamed before she hung up her phone and went to get her luggage.

She remembered the day after she got back from Paris years ago. She remembered coming home to a telephone call from Lauren Greene saying how they would love to have her as an intern after they read some of her works that Jack sneakily submitted, since they apparently knew each other.

She remembered how her mother cried when she had to fly to New York alone to pursue it as a career and hopefully be able to be promoted in the near future, since Lauren was ecstatic when she agreed. She remembered how excited she was, and how none of this would have been possible had it not been for him.

She made sure to keep in touch with Helen and Hugh to help them cope with the pain. It was nice because they looked at her like she was their daughter, and she looked at them like a second home. They were even the ones who gave her the generous offer of paying for a fully furnished penthouse after she told them of the amazing opportunity, and they insisted that she took it.

Elle hailed a cab over and loaded her luggage at the back before getting inside, telling him to take her home, but not before she made a little stop.

"Hey." She smiled as she stuffed one of the three keys that Helen gave her that could unlock the gate before she stepped inside the mausoleum with a bundle of blooming white roses in her hands before kneeling down before her almost lover.

Her eyes swept over the tombstone over and over again, yet the truth wouldn't fully settle, even after her multiple visits since France. It's what she always tried to do every chance she got off from work. Coming back here and seeing him seemed better than grasping the abundant opportunities to travel the world without the one person who truly seemed to matter even more.

These were the few times when she allowed the overflowing tears flow out. She worked so hard to conceal everything and keep it inside all the time, but she couldn't do that now.

She immediately felt like she went back ten years, and it made her feel like she was that broken girl again because the tears that were dripping on the concrete were the same tears that familiar stranger cried. It felt like all the sadness of the world held in a moment in time before it hit the ground. Finally, it felt like a sad reunion when she felt the familiar ache in her heart come back with the same force it did long ago, a time that she knew would forever be chained to her.

Her wails soon silenced into uneven breaths as her mind finally consoled her with whispers of how everything will be okay, and she suddenly remembered how everyone kept telling her that it was just young love and that the pain would just go away, but the love that they both shared was beyond lifetimes, and no one ever understood that except for those who have held that kind of love in their hands.

Maybe Jack Kingston was just a celestial flash before he faded away, but he brought into her life the brightest moments that she ever realized in the form of adventures, conversations, and just simply existing. He never did fit in, but it just made him all the more wonderful.

And she may never find anyone that could fill her heart like he did, but she was fine with that. Perhaps she will never be relieved of this burden that she carried, but only in this true suffering did she realize how deep her love was for him and how much she must have felt his love for her and how much they just surrounded each other with it. It was a reminder of him, and she would take whatever piece of him she could as she headed forward to the rest of her life because it always took a certain darkness to see the stars.

The End