Right Beside You

The horizon shone with the golden glow of the sun bobbing its head above the waves breaking below. He turned to her, seeing her ignite in the morning sun; in that moment he knew how Icarus felt in his winged sprint towards the sun. the way the beams illuminated her auburn ringlets, ran its golden fingers over her freckled skin… the way he deeply wished he could.  

Every day he spent gazing out over the waves dancing on the rays of the rising sun, he would think of her. Tracing over her memory like a route drawn down a roadmap. She found a way to take him with her as she grew. As her legs stretched from the kindergarten playground, skinned and bruised in her cutoff overalls, all the way to twirling round the dancefloor at her high school prom, long and lean under the layers of chiffon and silk. Throughout the checkpoints and milestones marked by cake and candles, sips of liquor and tearstained pillows. He had been there loving her, admiring the woman she was shaping herself to be. 

The moments blurred in time; one she was tossing up her black graduation cap skyward, the next it was off to college. She heeded her mother’s wise advice and enrolled in business; “it was always the best option for her”. She was off to make things of the world; she just hadn’t known it then. But like a candle first lit, the wick is caught and grows with the nurturing of the environment surrounding it, a small flicker now a sizzling blaze. 

Each job, from the mundane to the most coveted of positions, she enhanced with the glimmer of her being. Cooing her singsong “Hello” took on an art of its own, reaching out to instantly paint smiles across the lips of her patrons, clients and coworkers. As job turned to career and the cooperate climb commenced, she embraced all the trials and tribulations attached to each moment. 

I was there in the office when he came into her life too, clad in his sharp suit with even sharper tongue.

He wasn’t for her; I knew he would never be. She was the sun, a glowing ember amongst the coals, and he, well…  to put it plain, he couldn’t light her up. On the surface his money spoke of the marvels he boasted and claimed as his own, spoon fed to him from a silver platter. There was always a darkness to him, something malevolent lurking below the surface. 

She gave it her best though, as she did with everything. I tried to help, be her comfort when the fights turned volcanic. But that’s when the fists fell, hard on those beautiful freckles that dusted her cheeks. Blood mixing with whiskey and wine. His knuckles pounded through walls, through uttered apologies and falling tears, straight through the pleas of mercy. 

That night there was a call made, anonymously: “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” 

The ambulance whined as it toted her to the hospital, and I was there for the whole ride, my hand over hers as she drifted in and out of consciousness on the gurney. When those beautiful amber-tinted eyes came back to reality in those fleeting moments, I could’ve sworn it was the first time she saw me. They smiled up at me, through the mounding swelling and red fading to black then blue, for one fleeting precious moment. 

Hold on sweetheart, I’ve got you. 

She fought, through the surgery, through it all. 

         They consoled her mother, ensuring her they did all they could. The internal damage was too much. Punctured lung, internal bleeding, broken bones galore. I remember those familiar cries echoing from the hallway, her mother screaming with wails of devastation, as I stood there over her. Where once the fire shone, it’d been snuffed with a last breath, as though blowing out the candles one last time. Her eyelids slid down in a moment that seemed to last an eternity until those amber eyes so like his own closed on him. 

         The screams boomed as he wished his could. I made no sound though, just a silent promise as he leant down and kissed her stiffening hand. I’d remember her radiant and set on fire in the sunrise. For now, biding her body a somber adieu, he set off. 

The world couldn’t find him… but he could. 

Tin boat in tow, beer cans, someone’s panties discarded in the backseat; speeding through the mountain roads up to the secluded cabin. Punk rock blaring, screaming resilience and disobedience through the speakers. WE WONT BE CAUGHT!

But he was already. I was there, auburn and amber burnt into me like a scar searing my skin as I filled the vehicle with my presence. 

He howled along to the music not even showing a glimmer of remorse. He was making this so easy. With his suit unbuttoned, the hair a mussed mess, from the fighting or fucking, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter; the polished façade had long since faded. I leaned back in the passenger seat as the car tipped and turned, a bit too fast round the stony steep roadway. He wailed, I smirked. 

Amber and auburn, amber and auburn; that’s it, faster pal, faster... 

The car tipped just then, a little too far and that was all it took. I reached over and tugged the wheel, sending the car went careening down the cliffside and plummeting into the dark black lake lapping below. 

We both felt the impact of the car hitting water, the vehicle crunching against the jagged rocks lurking just below the waves. There was an unmistakable sound of bone cracking, his head split from crown to eye socket, blood mixing with water in curling, aquatic ringlets.

I sat and watched the world flip upside down and back again from my seat, front row audience to his demise, all the while my lips curled into a smile. She wouldn’t have wanted this; I knew that for certain. Always her kind heart prevailed. But myself, this was the sweetest taste since sucking air. To watch the man who pulverized my girl get tragically ushered into oblivion; it was simply justified. 

I knew what came after death, I knew the bleak blackness that awaited; only, instead of reanimating in some translucent form, I wished there was something worse awaiting him on the other side. Nothing glowing, no more amber and auburn for him to destroy.  

I often sit here, on the cliff banks now, staring out over the black lake’s somber visage peering back at me. She lays below the winter moon, her lips closed tight keeping him securely tucked under her tongue. It wasn’t much, to take the wheel that night; fueled by the cries of her mother and the searing image of my little flame fizzling into ash. It was nothing to take him to the water with me. 

I cherish those moments with her for eternity, the laughter we shared all whilst she never knew I was right there, walking along by her side. On her first day of school skipping to the bus stop, tucking her cozily into bed before chasing away the monsters, catching her graduation cap; I was celebrating every victory and ran my hand over her hair as she cried over each heartbreak. Sadly, I was there too as she lay dying, my hands helpless cellophane bound at the wrists. Desperately I needed her to know I was there. Don’t worry honey, daddy’s got you. 

I couldn’t save her. 

Yet… I could avenge her. 

After all, what are fathers for?