Broken Promises
The sand slipped between his fingers as he raised his hand to the sky. He let the golden grains pool on his lap and burrow their way into the folds of his clothes. He watched as the sand buried the ring that balanced between his legs, watched as the silver band with the message inscribed on the inside disappeared from view. Out of sight, out of mind. For a moment, he could forget about his marriage, forget about the suffocating union between him and her, and focus on the beautiful beach, with the sun that set the sea on fire as it sank below the horizon.
He was alone ; the last man standing after a day of beach volleyball and building sandcastles. He had sat in his coat, and his jeans, and his leather shoes, as parents dragged wet and sandy children in bright swimming costumes away from the sea, too focused on the wine in the fridge to care whether or not their protesting child wanted to stay. He had thought about wine as well; the bottle of red that lay smashed on the kitchen floor, the two empty glasses on the counter, her sitting there with fury in her eyes and murder on her mind.
The tide was creeping up the beach, swallowing it in big greedy gulps like a man who hadn’t had a drink in a week. He watched it edge closer and closer to his shoes, to his lap, to the ring that lay there under all the sand. He wished the sea would swallow it as well, and carry it far away in its stomach, and spit it out on some foreign shore. He dug it out from under the sand. The cold metal burnt his skin like iron burns the Fae. He twisted it between his fingertips and felt ashamed of the tears that stung his eyes. What had gone wrong? When had their love turned to hatred?
He remembered the way she used to smile, her left eye closing more than the right, framed by premature laughter lines. He couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled, but he could remember the last time she yelled. Frown lines had made a home on her face, an ugly reminder of what they had done to each other. They had made each other grow old, ageing their faces with insults and arguments, greying their hair with broken promises and lonely nights spent on the sofa.
There was no way to give back the life they had sucked out of each other. But there was a way to preserve the precious years they had left.
He took a deep breath, and stood up, letting the remaining sand fall from his lap and catch the evening breeze. He took one last look at the ring, read the inscription carved with such care one last time; ‘our love is eternal’, and threw it into the sea.
It disappeared under the waves, taking with it his anger and heartbreak. A weight lifted from his shoulders. And as he walked away, heavy coated peppered with sand, black hair peppered with grey, he smiled.
