The shot rang out loud and clear. Bang! I knew what I was hearing, I knew what I was seeing, and yet I could not believe any of it.
You, on the ground, a bullet through your chest, blood rushing from the wound, shrieks and screams escaping your lips. Your breath coming in gasps. You, on the ground, dying. Leaving this earth, leaving me.
And your murderer, sprinting away from his crime scene, his weapon forgotten and strewn carelessly across the pavement.
I picked up the gun and ran after him, for you. I did it for you.
Closer and closer I came to him, and to your revenge. A few yards away, stop, aim, shoot. Bang! More screams, more pain, the killer falling to the ground. People scrambling away, running away from me. I suddenly became a girl with a gun who had just shot someone. Not someone trying to avenge their loved one.
I dropped the gun. I ran away. I hid under the boardwalk burying myself in the sand. I promised myself that I would come back for you. I did. You were gone, lost in the wind, blown aside. Blown aside like you didn’t matter, like I didn’t love you. Like you were unimportant to the world.
But I know how important you were. You had people who loved you, people who cared for you, and people who now miss you. I don’t know what became of you, but I know that you are no more, and that I am no more. No one remembers me anymore. But they know you, they know how much you meant to the world.
How much you meant to me.
Time passes, wounds heal, but they never fully close up for good.