FicWad

She looked over the water and thought of years gone by. It was November 15th again. It had been seventeen years and still on this day every year, she came back to this place. It was her place of mourning, for here had been her greatest loss. No one had died on this day. No disaster of global proportions had occurred. To everyone passing by, this was just a day, just a place, and just a girl. Nothing out of the ordinary, but to this girl it meant everything. Maybe the world hadn't ended that cold day, but her world certainly had come crashing down about her.
The wind whipped around her cold and biting, she ignored it. She continued to stare out over the water. People passed behind her, over the bridge on which she stood. She paid them no mind, and they in return forgot she was there. Her mind was not in this moment, it was almost two decades behind. Here on this very bridge, he had told her he was leaving. He gave no reasons other than he had to, and that was the last she ever heard of him. They had spent four and a half years together. She had loved him, she loved him still. He let her go and never once looked back. Had it all meant nothing?
For three years after that day, she had been withdrawn and mourned constantly always wondering why he had left. She tried to get in touch with him for some sort of answer, but she could never find him. No one seemed to have any idea where he had gone. She had let depression take her into its blackest abysses, and she couldn't even fight it for the child she found herself carrying. Her family had cared for her and afterwards her baby girl, because they didn't know what else to do. Nothing seemed to touch her dormant spirit.
One day she had looked at her daughter, the girl who looked so much like her father, and realized she had to go on. She got up that day and cleaned the entire house. From then on, she mourned for her lost love only in the deepest recesses of her mind and then openly on this one day. She had been twenty when he said goodbye, she was thirty-seven now. She had a successful career and a beautiful, intelligent daughter who had turned sixteen that year.
He had broken some part of her that she found to be unfixable. No other man had ever been able to connect with her as he had. She had dated on request of her friends and family. It hadn't changed where her heart rested. Her heart remained with the man who had shattered it then carried the pieces away on the wind.
She laughed at the saying that to have loved and lost is better than to never have loved at all, how wrong it was. If she had never loved, she would never have know what it truly meant to be a tortured soul. No hell created by others could even compare with the one he left her to live in. Forced to walk through happy couples and beaming brides while her heart ached to be whole again. Now she lived for her daughter and her daughter alone. Her child was her last connection to him. The last piece of physical evidence that once they had loved each other.
"Mom? Hey mom what are you doing out here? It is freezing." the tall, teenager said.
Her mother looked at her and was again reminded so much of her father. She had his beaming brown eyes and his dark hair, as well as his height and cool confidence.
"I was just thinking honey. Let's go home now." she said smiling at her baby girl.
"Okay, can we get Chinese on the way home?" she asked already walking towards the edge of the park.
"Sure. I'll just be a minute." the mother answered then turned back to the river.
"Until next year my love. I'm still waiting you know? I need the other half of my soul to return."
There was no answer but the howl of the cold wind, as she turned away and followed her daughter away from the bridge. The smart rapping of her heels echoed over the lonely place and time went on.