This is the second thing I've posted here. I realize it's pretty short, but it's a start, and I wanted to see what you thought of it.
Hoarse shouts of the movers overlapped the guttural rumble of the moving van, diesel reek blending with the soft smell of the apple tree. They sat below it, his back resting on the rough bark , she cradled in his arms. Her smooth forehead lay against his neck, and she could feel his pulse, his heart beat with the hand she lay on his chest.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said, her broken voice clear. The crying had stopped, for now.
“I’ll come back. I promise I’ll come back.” He said.
“How do you know?” She looked up at him, broken blue eyes rimmed in red, her makeup in dark streaks down her cheeks. He brushed a strand of wavy blonde hair out of her face, tucked it behind her ear.
“Because no place else is home.”
His parents were inside the two story whitewashed house, walking through the rooms, making sure nothing was forgotten. The movers were packing the last few boxes of odds and ends into the full truck.
He looked down at her, her ocean blue eyes, her button nose, her long jaw, her pale lips. He could feel it in his heart, as if a piece was breaking off, staying here, while he tried to imprint her face in his mind, etch it behind his eyes. He kissed her then, frantically, desperately, one hand pressed to the side of her neck, the other arm cradling her still. She turned, her hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer.
“Jake! We need to go!” His mom called from the driveway.
She started sobbing, frantically gripping him, his t-shirt bunched in her white knuckled fists. “Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me.” She cried.
“Sierra…” He couldn’t breathe. He sat there, holding her, tears coursing down his cheeks. “I can’t live without you. I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice breaking.
“Come on! We’re leaving!”
“I love you.” She looked up at him, staring inside him. “I love you.”
“Sierra I love you. I’ll come back.”He said. “I promise. There’s nowhere else I can go.”
In the driveway a car honked, the grating noise cutting through the air.
“I have to go.” He stood, pulling her to her feet. Arms around her, one hand at the small of her back, the other between her shoulder blades, he kissed her, hard, channeling all his sorrow, his despair, his happiness, his love, his emotion, his heart into her. One hand on the back of her head, he pressed her face to his, kissing her hard. Releasing her, he stepped back, grabbing both of her hands in his.
“I love you, Sierra.” He said, and turned and walked away, toward the gravel path leading from the garden around the house. Waiting until he had turned the corner, she dropped to her knees, her face in her shaking hands, her back heaving with the sobs that wracked her body. Her chest, her heart, the air in her lungs, felt raw, empty, like something wasn’t there anymore. Like something had just walked away.
She lay on her side, her knees to her chest, staring at the blurry blades of grass rustling in the wind, behind it the white-gray gravel path snaking through the yard, the white slat fence, the pale green house on the other side. Something dug into her back, a tree root, but she ignored it, tears running down her nose, falling into the dirt.
Finally, she stood, brushed the dirt from her white shirt and jeans, and walked around the house. When she got to the front she stared blankly at the empty driveway, the gaping windows. Her chest ached, as she realized he wasn’t here anymore, wouldn’t be here anymore, and she turned and left.
The aroma of fresh cooked spaghetti sauce leaked into the hall as she opened the door of her family’s 2 bedroom apartment. She walked past the kitchen, dropping her coat beside the table.
“Are you okay?” Her mom said, turning from the gurgling pot on the stove. Sierra said nothing as she walked into the bedroom she shared with her sister.
“Sierra?” Her mom stood in the doorway, concern in her deep brown eyes and her pursed lips.
“He’s gone.”
