And somehow it felt like the beginning of forever, just sitting there at the foot of the lighthouse, as the sun was setting in the backround. It colored the ocean in shades of scarlet, but it wasn’t beautiful – it looked more like blood.

I closed my eyes and pictured you standing there, beside me, looking out over the water. The wind blowing your too-long brown hair into your emerald eyes. I always loved those freckles on your nose.

Yes, there was an ocean between us. But it wasn’t water, it was time.

The tears spilled over and coursed down my cheeks in wavy rivulets, reflecting the red of the setting sun. It wasn’t fair. I couldn’t even keep your letters. I couldn’t even keep anything, except the smell of you, which was still clinging to my clothes and in my nose.

I wondered if, somewhere, decades ago (or was it at the exact same time, somewhere else, in some separate reality, some alternate eternity?) you were thinking of me as well.

And somehow it felt like the beginning of forever.