She Said Goodbye Years Ago

One step, two-step, three-step, twirl out, pull in.

She led the dance with the first step, and he took back control with the second. He would have control till it came time from the twirl. She would twirl far longer with her ballgown flying around her; she would be the one to pull him in. Her bosom pressed against his chest as their faces neared, and they breathed each other's air. 

They would be so close. 

Just a little closer, and they would kiss.

But she would smile the smile that lit up the whole ballroom. That made every shadow of fear disappear from his lungs, and she would pull away and start the dance. 

One step, two-step, three-step, twirl out, pull in.

Her laughter would fill the room as he pulled her hand high and dipped her low. She would wrap her laced arm around him and circle each other. They were two planets in orbit with one another. 

They were shadows on the well-lit windows that led to the balconies. They pulled one another every which they had no path but the path that led them around each other. 

They passed many on their path. The king and queen, his and her parents, his little brother, and her little sister. They paid them no mind, for his hand was warm in hers, and his heart was safe in her arms. 

One step, two-step, three-step, twirl out, pull in. 

They were spinning around and around when she pulled away from him and stopped dancing suddenly.

She stood there with a breathless smile. Her heavy breathing bounced her breasts and, in turn, was bouncing the string of pearls looped around her neck. Her golden silk gloves reached up and touched his face, and he leaned into her hand and grasped it in his own.

Thunder rocked the palace, lightning lit up the room, and the orchestra paused for a moment. 

Just for one moment. 

Her bright brown eyes lit full of joy fell in that moment. Her smile was still firm on her face, but it wasn't the same. Her tiara seemed to sag with her bound-up hair.

The glittering lights of the ballroom. The candles, the chandeliers, the tables coved in exotic flowers, and table covers made of gold and silver - failed to match her beauty. Her elegance. The splendor of the royal ballroom was unable to match her beauty. Failed to catch the light of her smile, the glow of her skin, and the softness of her touch, and the honor of dancing with her.

She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. 

Their eyes held onto one another.

He was a thirsty man, and she was a cup of cold water; she was a hungry woman, and he was freshly baked bread. 

She moved her hand from his heated, lightly flushed cheek and his hand. 

She tugged on him but not for a dance. They moved across the dance floor, out the large open doors, and into the hallway. 

She took a deep breath and sat down on a bench. The bench was hidden from observers and eavesdroppers. Her ballgown, larger than the bench, fell around her in waves like she was sitting on a cloud. He knelt in front of her and took her hands into his own.

She was still flushed from all of the dancing, from the heat of the summer night, and from the rain that was coming down. 

"My love," she whispered. Her lips were painted a pale pink, the same shade of the diamonds of her tiara, and the words sounded so good upon them. "My love." Her voice was louder. Not so much that her parents were bound to hear. But loud enough that they sounded like a kind of heaven to his ears. "I have something to tell you."

He leaned closer, but she raised her hand. 

He leaned back, and she looked down at the ring on her finger. She fiddled with it, twisting it, lifting it, and sliding it down. She took a breath as though to speak but then released it. Her curled bangs covered her face before she looked up at him. 

"My love, my parents, have chosen me a husband." She choked out. "I am to marry him in a fortnight. I am told that he is the younger brother of a prince. That he will care for me." 

Thunder rolled, and rain came down. 

The breath in his lungs froze. The heat in his cheeks cooled like ice, his hands started to shake, and his eyes watered.

"What?" He finally got out.

"I am to be wedded." That was all she said. She looked despairingly down at her hands. 

There was a pain in his chest. Like hot molten steal had stabbed him through. He was a freshly shattered window lying on the ground that no one had put back together. 

She took his hands, held them to her face, and nestled into them.

She had tears slowly streaming down her face. 

Her ring gleamed in the candlelight. She opened her eyes and once again held his with her own. She had a power over him that no one else would have.

"I am your knight." That was the only thing he could think to say. It was the only thing that he could get out.

"And I am your lady." She answered. 

It was like they were kids again at that moment. Playing in the playroom of her parents' house under the watch full eyes of the governess - their favorite game back then was the Lady and Knight. She was the Lady, and he was the Knight forever sworn to follow and protect her. 

Yet here she was, sitting on a bench away from intrusive eyes and nosy ears with tears in her eyes. His proud Lady - crying - for what? A marriage to a man who will not care for her or treasurer her that way she is to be. He was the Knight, and she was a lady, and he could not follow her. 

He stood up, and she followed. 

She wiped her tears away with her hands. Her make-up was a mess, but she smiled. "My Knight, my love, will you give me one last dance?" She held out her hand.

He took it. 

One step, two-step, three-step, twirl out, pull in. 

They danced up and down the hallway to the faint music of the ballroom and loud drums of rain. 

They danced up and down the hall like shadows under a star-filled night. 

Her hand was tight in his, and her smile was brittle like a bird's bones.

They danced and danced. The rain fell harder and harder, and the music got louder and louder - he dipped her one last time, and it all stopped.

Their chests were heaving, and their eyes stung with not yet fallen tears. 

He pulled her up as the applause from the ballroom roared.

They stood there for what felt like the whole of history and a blink of an eye. She looked down at her hands and pulled off her most plain-looking ring and took his hand, and placed the ring in the middle. 

"Take this and remember me by it. Goodbye, my love." It was a parody, a man was to give his soon-to-be bride a ring to show his love and care, but here she was giving him a ring to remember her by. She walked past him and back to the ballroom, where new music was playing and where the rain had stopped. She didn't turn around, and he didn't take his eyes off of her. 

That was years ago.

When he was a young man, back when he still had a love and some hope. Yet, he was sitting on his bed with a box he hadn't opened in forty-odd years. It held the suit he once wore and the ring she had given him. 

There wasn't a day that went by that he hadn't thought of her. 

But she had said goodbye years ago. 

He opened the box and stared at the suit that looked as good as when he was there that ballroom night. The ring had lost its luster but, with some elbow grease, should be as good as new. 

He sighed. His bones cracked and ached as he stood up from where he sat on his bed. His bed was made, and his room was empty. All that was left in this house that was leaving was him and this box. He picked up the box with trembling hands and walked downstairs and outside. He placed the box ever-so-gently with the other boxes in the horse-drawn buggy. 

The ring was still in his hand as he slid into the seat next to the coachman. 

He was moving the ring around in his hand like a small ball, back and forth, back and forth. The coachman gave a light whistle, and horses moved in a trot. They traveled down the cobblestone streets, taking a turn here and there. The ring nearly glowed in its lackluster state under the mid-summer sun. 

His eyes were locked onto the ring. Memories of a time long past and time he will never return to. The funny thing, he thought, about memories is that one can get stuck in them and never let go.

And wasn't what he was doing in the last years of his life? Laying in a bed that was never warmed by another body, staring up at his yellowing ceiling and reliving that last night. 

He loved her.

He knew that.

The buggy came to a stop in front of an old rundown convent. The coachman jumped off the buggy and went around the back and opened the buggy, and helped the sisters unload it.

He sat there still on the buggy but no longer looking at the ring. He jumped down, himself, and started to help with the unloading of the boxes. Most of the boxes were full of clothes. Clothing from when he was still a child playing Lady and the Knight, from when he was a young banker apprentice working all hours of the week, from his brother's wedding, and from when he was the bank manager. 

There was one box full of the clothes he wore when he got word that his Lady had died. 

He loved her.

He picked up the box with his suit, with the memories of the last dance, walked into the church, and sat it with all the other boxes. He didn't need these things, not anymore. Where he was going, he needed nothing. He only kept them for the memories. It was time to give them a new life. The children of the convent would be happy to have them. 

He pulled the ring off of his pinky finger and placed it in the money collection bin. It settled in the tin with a sharp ding.

He sat down at the front row pew, under the sunlight from a painted window, and closed his eyes.

He loved her, but it was time to let her go with all love and care she deserved. 

But, he thought, let him relive that dance one last time before letting her go.

One step, two-step, three-step, twirl out, pull in.

He could see her. He could touch her. He dipped her low. He could hear her laugh. He smiled, and so did she.

He exhaled, but he never breathed in.