She stared at the phone. Silent. If wishing could make it so, it would ring, and she'd hear that familiar voice, that warm greeting.
But wishing couldn't make it so.
She was grateful for small favors. Right now, if she wished...
No.
She could, of course she could, pick up the phone herself and dial, key in the number long since deleted from her speed dial.
She wouldn't.
Not pride, sense. Been down that stupid clinging to a dead dream road too many times, now she beat it into submission. It was just a dream, another bad dream in a series of bad dreams and she wasn't going to let the pang of familiar resurrect it. She recognized this sudden ache for what it was: the vain attempt of a frightened psyche clinging to the past.
Rereading the letters, examining the artifacts of a non-relationship which melted at the first sign of rain, looking at it head-on, no frills, cold truth looking to see what?
That it was all in her head.
The enacted reality is reality.
Until it isn't.
She'd stopped, stopped without even realizing she had stopped, it had been so gradual a stopping, a little bit less every day, weaning by fits and starts, detours, backtracks, and one day, she'd given it up, startled that it had been weeks since she'd even had to think about forcing herself to stop thinking, stop treading that old road. It was over, but now, this minute, it was back and had to be beaten down again. She had to be strong, not give in to the status quo.
Do you remember your last kiss? Can you remember if you don't know it's the last one?
She looked at the handful of trinkets, things which had seemed so precious at the time, tawdry, painted tchotkes, no particular thought in their purchase, as common as their drugstore origin. Pushed the pang away and dropped them in the can.
Sighing, she tied the trash bag shut, put it by the door to go out later. New interests absorbed her, filled the void. What started as anything better than alone had morphed. Indeed, they more than filled the void, they filled parts of her she didn't know were hollow.
The no-longer black morning sky made her smile. A day and a night and a day and a night and more, many more, not empty and not filled with cotton candy, either. The tears surprised her, rolling into the corner of her grin with each blink, and she wiped them with the hem of her shirt.
Tonight, she'd wish upon a star, a new wish, different. If you always wish for what you've always had, you'll always get what you've always got, but if you wish for something new, something different, well, anything can happen. Anything at all.
Now, she'd watch the sun rise.
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