Ten Years Later

She was happy.

Genuinely happy. It had only been a few years of that kind of happiness. Two years to fight, one year of regret, one year of bliss, then two years of compassion. And then she came along and the compassion was turned into perfection. Perfect happiness.

Her hand was intertwined with his. He was drawing small circles on her palm while laughing so loudly that she swore she could hear him all around her. Their perfection was running between them on her little four year old legs, her deep black hair pulled up in a traditional tribe style. Her giggle was exactly like her mother's. Her eyes were exactly like her father's, a beautiful golden-amber. Her personality, though, was the perfect mixture of the both of them. Stoic when times were bad but brash when they were good.

The park in the perfect little town they'd settled in was all he had ever wanted, and after the incidents in the city so many years ago, she was happy to comply. There was still plenty of nature around them so that she could bend freely while they taught their daughter the rights and wrongs of life. They tried to give their daughter as much freedom as they could (for a four year old, at least).

They wandered down the beaten cobblestone path while their daughter waded in the shallow pond, embracing the little turtle ducks that poked for the piece of wheat bread in her tiny hands. She was already a natural in the water, something that her mother was thankful she had inherited. Her laughter was just as beautiful as her father's as the creatures ate the remaining of her bread.

Her husband pulled her to the side of the path under the tree where he had proposed. It was her favorite spot in the entire world; the leaves would fall from the vines in winter and cover the ground with a deep russet color. They used to play in the leaves with his younger brother before the man returned to the city to go into the work force. Still, she and her husband were perfectly happy with the life they had settled into.

He sat and pulled her onto his lap while they kept a careful eye on their perfect daughter. The breeze was calm, the air never still. She watched as a single leaf floated down from the sky and blocked her view from her daughter momentarily. When it moved, she found her gaze across the pond, on a bench, with a pen and paper in his hand.

She untangled herself from her husband with a promise to return. He knew she would keep it, but it was always reassuring to hear it from her lips. They had been through everything together that there was nothing she wasn't sure he could handle. For the birth of their daughter, she'd broken two of his fingers, but he still had a smile on his face.

She knew he'd be there when she returned, but for now she needed to see this stranger. It had been so long… she wasn't sure she remembered him clearly, or if this were even really him. She just wanted to make sure that he was alive. It had been her worst fear when she'd heard he had quit his job and moved out of the city to become a librarian, an author. She wasn't shocked to learn that it was his career choice; just shocked that he would leave her for his own personal needs.

Although they hadn't exactly gotten along very well when they'd last spoken, she knew that she could fix it. When she was sure it was him, she was nearly crushed to see him shut his notebook and stand. He hadn't seen her, but she couldn't bring herself to yell for him. It was a park, her husband sat just across the pond, her daughter was swimming in the pond. She couldn't just call out to an old lover like that.

He'd aged incredibly well; his muscles were well defined under his dark red collared t-shirt. His hair had been cut, she could tell, but it was growing back around his ears. She had no time to question her actions as she threw her arms around the stranger. She'd always been brash, always been daring.

He tightened and turned to rebuke the stranger. Ever since the incident, he hadn't found too much warmth in him. But when he noticed who it was, he almost turned away then and there. She'd long given up the ponytails and clips and now wore a complicated braid down her back. Her blue eyes and honeyed lips still remained the same, but he saw something that he had only wished to give her; happiness.

He hadn't forgotten about her no matter how hard he had tried. He still had nightmares of losing her, and whenever he woke, he realized that she wasn't there beside him to comfort him. To tell him it wasn't a nightmare. He hadn't been able to get over her and fall for some pretty girl in his hometown. He'd tried, but none of them were her.

He knew he had lost when he saw the choker on her neck. He had bought her one a day before the incident, but he hadn't known what they meant until a few years later. Engagement. Proposal. Love. Marriage. He saw the little girl in the pond and noticed how much she looked like the woman he used to love and his heart sunk with realization. While he had hung on to her so tightly, she had moved on and fallen in love. He should have known.

He didn't know how to reply to her hug—he so badly wanted to hug her back, to remain her best friend again. But he knew that it would lead to his dreams that he'd had so many years before. He knew that, in time, he would be nothing but a wrecker of her happiness.

So he pulled away. Her eyes reflected the hurt he still felt, the pain of knowing he could have been with her if they had just left earlier and quit putting it off. The agony of losing the only thing he had ever loved.

"I still love you." She said, her voice breaking with grief.

Howl smiled. "I know."

He turned on his heel and walked away.

It was time to try healing again.