Therapy Bits

Thanks Missy for hosting your challenge!

Missy’s MAD Challenge # 045 – M.A.D. Works

This week, the challenge phrase is…

“The last time I talked to her”.

Here is my story!

The last time I talked to her, the sky was the color of bruised peaches, soft orange fading into dusk’s indigo. We were standing at the edge of the old pier, the boards creaking under our feet as if they too were straining under the weight of things unsaid.

“I’m leaving,” she said, not looking at me. Her voice was calm, too calm for someone about to vanish from a life.

I remember the way her hair moved in the wind, a dark ribbon fluttering just out of reach. “For how long?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. Her backpack was too full, and her eyes were set on something far beyond the horizon.

She turned then, finally, and gave a sad smile. “For good.”

There wasn’t a fight. No slamming doors, no accusations. Just silence—a thick, heavy thing that settled between us like fog. I wanted to ask why. Why leave the town where we grew up? Why leave me?

But instead, I asked, “Will you write?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Maybe.”

She didn’t. Weeks turned into months. Then a year. No letters. No calls. Just memories folding into themselves like pressed flowers—beautiful, fragile, and slowly fading.

I heard rumors. That she went west. That she joined a band. That she changed her name. I even heard she got married. But nothing ever confirmed, nothing real.

Until today.

Today, I got a letter in handwriting I hadn’t seen in over four years. It was short. Just an address, a date, and a line that read:
“If you ever wondered why, come find me.”

So I’m packing now. Leaving behind my quiet routines, my comfortable silences, and driving toward the place where bruised peaches once met bruised hearts.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally get to ask her what I couldn’t that night on the pier.