This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Every newsletter, the winners of the monthly Novelicious Pinterest Prompt flash fiction competition are awarded a Five Minute Fiction slot. Grab a brew, have a read and, if you’re feeling inspired, be sure to enter the next Pinterest Prompt.
By Anna Mansell
Rachel ran down the hill, breathless and fearful; her voice instantly absorbed by rolling waves and the driving offshore winds. Familiar, soft ground pushed her balance with each step; holes hidden by overgrown grass, amongst the dunes. The first time he went, it took hours to find him. A whole search party scoured the town, fields and cliff tops; coming here last – to the place he would play as a child – just as dusk fell. The fact Rachel knew where he’d be now, brought little consolation. This was the first place she always looked and he never let her down. The last constant in their lives, he had never let her down.
Before reaching the look-out, she slowed and then stopped, taking a moment to recharge her strength for the routine. Looking out to sea, she watched the battle between wind and tide. Incoming waves bouncing back from the rocks, meeting more waves rolling away, crashing and breaking mid-cove; a fight that neither could win, but both would try. Rachel ignored the obvious metaphor.
“Peter?” Slowly, slowly because he wouldn’t respond. “Peter.” She reached out, slipping her hand into his and closing it tight for them both. If he knew she was there, he didn’t say. “Hey, we should go home. It’s cold.” She knew that he wouldn’t feel it. “It’s late.” She knew that he wouldn’t care.
“When is she coming back?”
Rachel’s heart broke, as it always did when he asked.
“Why doesn’t she come back?”
Rachel moved her free hand to his arm, pulling him gently away from the pain he was inflicting on them both. She was glad that he no longer fought this part, that he allowed her to guide him home.
“I need her.”
Rachel sighed, “I know you do, Peter.”
“Why did she go?”
It didn’t matter what she said now, he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t remember and he couldn’t help it. For five years together they fought this. For two years now, Rachel fights it alone, the repetition of their day as comforting as it is challenging.
“I didn’t go, Peter.”
He looks at her, searching for a familiarity he cannot see. Yet, his face is barely different to the young man she met only twenty years ago. “Why did she go?” He asks of her again, and as they walk slowly back home, Rachel tells him all the things that no longer remind him, of the love they once shared.
Perhaps now was the time to admit, she couldn’t do this alone anymore.