Walking Away

It was almost hallucinogenic, surreal feel. Everything felt different, the wind blew abnormally lightly, tugging at her shoulder length hair. The streetlights around bathed the surrounding with soft yellow light, illuminating the otherwise dim overhead bridge. All around them, the trees rustled slightly, which was the only sound save for the roar of an occasional passing car.
She stood there, overlooking the wide paved road. She put up one hand next to her face, preventing her hair from billowing into her face. Her liquid brown eyes stared off into the distance, before she raised her head to admire the stars above. A solitary bird cawed, before flapping its wings and soared away.
He stood there, mesmerised, enchanted, heart pounding loudly. She was there, less than an arm’s length away. He watched her silently, afraid of saying something wrong, afraid of doing something wrong.
She watched him as he shuffled awkwardly, refusing to meet her gaze. She giggled a bit, before taking a step forward to him. His eyes opened wide, not wanting to believe that what he was seeing was true.
He struggled to open his mouth to speak, but before he could stammer any words out she silenced him with a finger to his mouth. Then, as he frantically tried to think of what was the right thing to do, she threw her arms around him.
It took his confused mind a whole second to comprehend what had happened. He felt the warm embrace, the comfort of human closeness, something he wanted, had yearned for. He remembered the cold emptiness he felt on Valentine’s Day as he saw couples together. He remembered the pain of rejection from his first crush, he remembered the longing he felt when his friends got attached one by one.
Time seemed to slow into eternity.
Then, he slowly took her hands off him.
She looked at his face with a mixture of surprise and confusion. She gasped silently as she saw in place of a pair of lively eyes was a pair with great sadness.
She opened her mouth to speak, but it was his turn to place his finger on her lips. She stopped, and he ran his hands through her hair.
Just once.
He withdrew his hand, placed both of them into his pants pockets, and slowly turned away.
He had to.
She looked on silently, there was no need for words.
He did the right thing. He was not worthy of her, he knew. Even if she thought so, he did not.
Even dreams have to meet harsh reality one day.
He did the right thing.
He just could not stop doing the right thing.

Something I dug up from my computer hard drive. Inspired by the ending to the Spider-Man movie. Wonder if I'll act that way too...