TOSKA

“... you’ll have to fall in love at least once in your life, or Paris has failed to rub off on you.”  Hope closed the copy of Brushstrokes of a Gadfly by E.A. Bucchianeri and stared at the illuminated Eiffel Tower. Magnificently it stood with its beauty.  

"Paris does no magic and love is a lie." Hope turned around to find a girl about her age standing in front of her with tears rolling down her cheeks. 

"What's wrong?" Hope asked is a low voice. 

"Ev..everything." The girl replied. 

"Do you want some coffee?" 

The girl stared at Hope for a moment and burst out into tears. Hope rushed to her side and pulled her into an embrace. "Let's get you some coffee and then you can tell me all about it."

Taking a sip of coffee the girl said, "You know.. how you are fine and nothing out of the ordinary happens with you and then...one day...you bump into someone who just flips your world. For better and for worse. It's always better in the beginning. In the beginning time stands still. Things are always right in the beginning.  The laughter, the butterflies in the stomach, the halfway meet, the conversing through eyes. The beginning, t's perfect. And for the first time you aren't dreaming. You are in perfect reality without hating it. It's the end that kills you. You never think you will get to the end but you do. When you meet the one time catches up fast and before you know it you are back to the waking nightmare. That's all, you know."

"I know." Hope said in a whisper. She knew it very well, Even after seven years the emotions haunted her. They reminded her of the heartache. It's as if the demons are stabbing her every time his face, his words, his smell floods her mind. She missed him in the most human way possible. She will never wrap her head around the fact that the emptiness will last. Forever.