writing prompt #5//Most Beautiful

{This is writing prompt #5, Most Beautiful. It took me twenty three minutes to write with a time limit of thirty five minutes. It stars a girl with a melancholy past.}

It was exactly four years ago.

I was in college. At the time, my world revolved around my education and grades. I spent day after day either in my dorm room or the campus library after classes, nose stuck in a book.

If it weren't for him, I wouldn't know how to live. I wouldn't know what happiness meant. I would think life was just a test I had to complete in a matter of several decades. He was the one that taught me how to laugh, to love, to live.

I sit beside the wooden box he gave to me before he left. He made me promise him to never show it to anyone else.

It is filled with photographs, capturing hundreds of memories we shared together, all captioned with a sentence or two. Most of them are black and white. But a few are colorful.

The one in my hand is of me with my hand out, hundreds of birds swarming around me to feed on the seeds. He stands with his hand on my waist, looking at me with a smile as I have my mouth open in delight.

I subconsciously smile and place the photo aside. Another captures my eye and I pick it up. It is a black and white one. It shows us at a black tie event. It was our first formal outing. We are the only things in the picture that are in focus, dancing. I remember that night. I was wearing a black off-the-shoulder dress and he came in a freshly-pressed suit. I still have the rose he gave to me, pressed between the pages of a book.

The next photo is a selfie I remember I took in the library. Even after hushing him so many times, he continued to talk very loudly. Behind us is the librarian, finger pressed against her lips and a stern consternation. He is smirking and I am struggling to hold a laugh back.

But even from the start, I knew he was not an ordinary person.

On the evening of our third anniversary, he took me to the rocky shores of the beach. It was there that he confessed everything.

He was an immortal superhuman that was born to combat the evil in the world. He had magic I could not even comprehend. I asked if there was anyone else like him. It was revealed to me that of course there were, all of which were in disguise.

It was also that night that he broke my heart.

They were all required to move to different places all around the world, aiding in whatever way they could. He had to go. And he could never see me again. He told me that if he stayed with me any longer, he would be bringing danger to me.

I remember my reply.

It was a promise, a vow, a compromise. I told him I could handle the danger. I could handle anything for him. But he couldn't agree to do it. He couldn't stay. He left before I could ask, leaving only the wooden box behind and three words I have never felt so deeply before.

Now, kneeling on the wooden flooring beside the wooden box, I see a small package in the corner of the box I haven't noticed before. I pick it up and see the tag reads, "Most Beautiful." When I push the covering off, I realize a mirror is within. I stare at it for a long time before realizing his meaning.

I blush, a small smile edging onto my face.

"Clever, very clever," I whisper.

It is only then that I see the surface of the mirror ripple just the slightest. My eyes widen.

I certainly don't think that night on the rocky cliffs of the beach will be the last time I ever see him again.

(Picture provided by Wix.com)