Free One Day Soon by A. Meredith Walters

caught him staring, I saw the pain. The anguish.
    It was all mixed up with something I had hoped to see.
    Joy.
    “I’m so glad to see you,” I told him quietly.
    The emotions I had seen plainly on his face were quickly replaced with a chill I didn’t understand.
    “I wish I could say the same thing,” he remarked, his voice hard and broken.
    I felt each word like a knife to the gut.
    Without saying anything else, I left his room. I didn’t look back again.
    The tears wouldn’t fall. Not with eyes full of condemnation watching my retreat.

    My house was dark by the time I got home that evening. I unlocked the door of my modest three-bedroom ranch style house and let myself inside. I added the day’s mail to the teetering pile on the table in the hallway and made my way to the living room, turning on every light as I passed.
    It was uncomfortably quiet. Too quiet.
    I had always hated silence.
    Usually when I was home I turned on the television to give the illusion of other people in the room with me.
    It used to drive Chris nuts. We lived in a constant state of war where I’d turn up the volume and he’d immediately turn it down.
    “You’re not even watching it, Imogen!” he’d complain. Our marriage had been full of nitpicking and disagreements. We had never really worked. We had nothing in common. Hell, I didn’t even really like him most of the time.
    But I hadn’t wanted to be alone. To me, that was a fate worse than death.
    I had grown up in a house where I may as well have been invisible. I was desperate to create a different kind of family. One where I was loved and appreciated.
    I had known Chris for years. We had met at college two years after I had lost Yoss. I hadn’t realized then that I was still rebounding from the boy I had only loved for a brief time.
    With Chris things were… bland.
    I had made myself believe that passion didn’t matter. That it only led to heartache and empty promises, which I had no time or energy for.
    Chris wasn’t particularly attractive, but he was considerate. He could be kind. He had made me smile when I didn’t have a whole lot to smile about. Things had been okay and that was good for me.
    But okay quickly became not enough .
    Chris never understood my strange idiosyncrasies. He had no patience for my hoarding tendencies or my need to settle and not move. He knew some of the parts of my history. I had explained my strained relationship with my mother. How I never felt wanted or important. I had even told him about my time as a homeless teenager, sleeping at The Pit and digging in the trash for food.
    But I never told him about Yoss.
    Why had I felt the need to hide such an important person from my husband?
    Was it guilt? Was it regret? Was it the fact that I had never quite gotten over my first love?
    Chris never knew that every few months I would walk down by the river at sunset. I’d follow the railroad tracks to the Seventh Street Bridge. I’d hang back by the trees and wait for the fires to be lit. I’d watch and I’d look.
    I never stayed there long. Just a few minutes. An hour at most. I hadn’t wanted to linger in case someone recognized me.
    Sometimes I’d see Karla and Shane. The years hadn’t been kind to either of them.
    But I wasn’t there for them.
    Years had passed; I should have long since let go. But how did you let go of something that never really felt over? How did you let go of someone that had changed you from the inside out?
    I turned on the television, feeling myself relax as I raised the volume to fill the silence. I took off my coat and threw it over the back of the couch. I kicked off my shoes and slid my feet into the waiting pair of slippers shaped like cartoon elephants that I bought on a whim during one of my many random shopping sprees.
    There was a knock on my door. I didn’t bother going to open it, knowing that the person on the other side would walk in anyway.
    “Hey! I saw your car out front!”
    Out of control blond