The mark that humans leave are too often scars.

-John Green

He was already standing there, waiting for her, fresh tulips in his hands. She quickly made her way through the branches on the narrow path. Each leaf was lit with moonlight, brilliantly shimmering, like diamonds on trees. It was enchanting.

He heard her approach and turned around. And she swallowed her previous statement. He was enchanting, even more so tonight.

She walked over to the bridge. The very first place they'd met.

"You came", he said, outstretching his hand to her.

"Why wouldn't I?"  she said with a small laugh. Oh, what he wouldn't give to hear it daily.

Everything inside him shifted as he looked at her, hoping to keep this memory buried safe. So deep, it'd blur the line between his reality and his hopes.

'You know I have to go. Duty calls", he said, holding her near.

"And you know I'd follow you anywhere", she said, running her hand through his buzzed hair.

"Not this time love", he sighs, resting his forehead on hers.

"Then I'll follow you through the end of time", she smiles.

"I'll come back. I promise."

And suddenly, as though from an otherworld, a loud boom echoes. And she jolts awake. Finds herself in that same spot. He is eight years late. The bridge is still the same, the place where they'd last met. 

The tulips are dead; the memories burn in her head. They have obliterated the line between reality and her fate.  

The moonlight still glints, but all it does is make her realize that she would never see his irises again.

And all she does is whisper, "Come back, come back home. You promised; come back to me. Tell me you love me again. Please, please, oh please, come back to me."