• He never really appreciated her. That’s why she left. He didn’t know this, he was too blind to be able to see. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Lets go back shall we? You see, it all started one rainy morning in December. It was the first rainstorm of the winter season, and it was a heavy one.
    “I’m soaking wet. What took you so long?”
    “I’m sorry, my brother was being slow this morning.”
    “Well, this umbrella’s no use now. Class is starting.” And there she was left, standing in front of a classroom that was as far away from hers as could be, stunned and hurt. She didn’t mind though, she knew he would come around. This wasn’t the first time though, and it wouldn’t be the last.
    “I need two bucks.”
    “I gave you three yesterday and I need this last dollar for my lunch.”
    “That’s rather selfish of you isn’t it?”
    “Well, I need this. Go ask one of your friends.”
    “Fine. Don’t expect me to be back for the rest of lunch though.” She raised her chin as he walked away, hiding the hurt that was pooling over in her heart, not knowing that it was slowly breaking. Things like this occurred several more times, and she still tried to love him. She helped him whenever he needed it, listened to his venting when he was angry at something, and soothed him when he was sad. She even held it together when she caught him flirting with another girl, thinking she did something to drive him to it. She could see the pitying and almost contemptuous looks of her friends as they whispered about her sad pathetic situation, but she ignored them and held her head high. That was, until the final straw didn’t just break, it was smashed and ground in.
    “I saw that.”
    “Saw what, honey?”
    “You! You were… flirting! With that… that NERD! That NOBODY!”
    “I—what? I would never-!”
    “You don’t love me, do you? DO YOU?!”
    “THAT’S ABSURD! YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU, KYLE!” And she stormed away, tears running down her pale cheeks. She couldn’t believe that after all she’d done for him he would accuse her of such a thing! She had been asking him about the homework! The thing that hit her the most was that he accused her after she had caught him so many times doing what he thought her guilty.
    He didn’t see her the next day. He didn’t see her the day after that, and what made it worse, he was sorry for what he said. For the first time, he was sorry for what he had done. He was sorry for how wrong he had been treating her. Even his friends had had enough of his behavior to him. At first he had been mad, he couldn’t believe that they were mad at him of all people! And how he had hated the looks all of Delilah’s friends gave him, but now… he knew he deserved them. He had gone out and picked some flowers for her the second morning after she had yelled at him, and he was excited to see her. He was excited because he’d fix it, and then everything would be normal again.
    (Normal? Back to how it was? You’re terrible.)

    When he saw her, his heart did a tiny jump. It didn’t do the jump of an ashamed lover, but a small one of being able to claim his lost possession, but when he saw her arm slung through that… nerds, it was hard not to crush the flowers in his hand. His smile turned into an angry frown just as hers had turned into one of contempt. He didn’t even begin to fear the contempt. Not yet. “So you were cheating on me!” He accused, throwing the flowers down at her feet. Instead of looking down at them, ashamed as he hoped she’d be, she rose her chin and looked down at him, despite her being a full half a foot shorter than him.
    “No, Kyle. I’m fed up with you. You never appreciated the things I did for you! I gave you so much of me and what did you do? You threw it down and ground it into the dirt.” And without realizing what she was doing, she had ground his hand-picked flowers into the school’s dirty hall floor. “So, I’m leaving you, and Ethan... his shoulder was the one offered when it should have been yours! It should have always been yours that was offered! But was it? No. It was only ever something cold and alien to me.” Kyle stared at her in disbelief. He wasn’t shocked at her breaking up with him and his accusations, not yet anyway, he was more surprised that she was actually standing up for herself. He was still staring after her in disbelief as she and Ethan walked away, his hand about her waist in a comforting gesture. Several emotions went through him all at once: disbelief, loss, sadness, anger, and embarrassment. The most dominant one being embarrassment at how much he had just been pulled out into the limelight within the crowded hallway. Then, loss and sadness swept through his heart, and he ran. He ditched the rest of his classes and, unseen by all the rest of the pitying eyes that he had seen pointed his way, he cried.
    Over the next couple of days, he missed her. He missed the listening ear she always supplied, the considerate actions that she always did for him. Like the umbrella incident, and the time that she had given half of her lunch money to him so that he could buy a shirt, leaving her with only enough to buy a brownie. He watched her and Ethan walk around the school, and she looked beautiful, and so much happier than she had ever looked when they were together. His friends were always giving him pitying, “I told you so” looks, and Delilah’s friends always gave him mocking looks that said, “Serves you right.” He knew they were right, and he had even asked her to come back. He had been hopeful when a look of uncertainty had shown, but all of it crashed like broken glass the when she looked at Ethan and he saw the love that flooded through her face. The tinkling of his shattered hope hitting the floor of his soul was almost audible. He walked away without waiting for an answer, her eyes already saying all and more. He tried dating again, but none of them were like her. They weren’t as considerate, kind, caring. That was his job.
    Years later, after he thought his heart had moved on, after he thought he had forgotten with the busy life of coaching a pro-hockey team taking up mos of his life, he saw her again. It was in a supermarket. How cliché. She had smiled at him and said, “Hey, I hear you’re coaching a pro team, eh? My husband, Ethan, loves the team.” She smiled, and the pain came rushing back to him with such a blow that it took an almost visible effort not to grimace in pain. They had chatted for a bit, but then he had to pay and so they said their goodbyes and parted ways. As if it couldn’t get any worse, the most ironic song that could have been playing had gotten suddenly louder in his forlorn ears.
    Hey there Delilah here’s to you
    This one’s to you
    Oh, it’s what you do to me
    Oh, it’s what you do to me…

    He never knew what he had until he lost it, and losing it again made him really realize it.